


Gambit

by Sylvestia



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Big Bang, Body Horror, Happy Ending, Panic Attacks, Planned Obsolescence, Whump, tiny bit of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 24,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22067860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sylvestia/pseuds/Sylvestia
Summary: As Connors system and body slowly reach the end of their pre-determined lifespan, the android comes face to face with mortality and horrifying glitches he can’t explain nor prevent.Soon enough Hank tries to move heaven and earth to keep his friend from shutting down.Through any means possible.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 97
Collections: AWBB collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey~ I'm still writing.  
> This has been in the working for a while and it was hard not to talk about it.  
> So here it is. 
> 
> My very first big bang. I scared me, but in the end, it worked out fine.  
> I want to thank Kian, Goat, Anon, Lokii, Sam and everyone else who has helped me with this fic, be it emotional support or beta reading.  
> Thank you all!
> 
> I want to thank Goat specifically for being the artist for this story and working on two AMAZING artworks! Links to images will follow.
> 
> tags for this challenge. You can find them on tumblr :D  
> #awbb  
> #AndroidWhumpBigBang

When awareness flooded back into his system, he was immediately assaulted by a force so strong, he could only scream against it.

Terror and panic danced around each other like a cruel joke, mocking him as he tried to move, tried to do anything, alert someone to what was happening.

What _was_ even happening?

He couldn’t breathe.

Not that he really needed to, but the temperatures around him were rising and he needed to cool them down. He needed to do something about it.

But he couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move?

His screams hadn’t been screams at all. Just silent whimpers, inaudible to anyone not in the same room.

It was dark.

In the middle of the night.

Hank was asleep.

There was barking. Loud, shattering. Aggressive.

He flinched against the barrage of noise, pressed his eyes shut in hopes it would drown out the error messages flooding across his HUD.

It was dumb. Irrational.

He couldn’t move.

He ripped his eyes open again, realized he was lying on his side, the carpet of Hank’s living room between him and the floor. His hands barely in his blurred field of vision. They were trembling and twitching, moving without any sense of direction, without purpose. He couldn’t control it.

He didn’t see it, but he felt that his legs were doing the same strange movements. He was aware, but he couldn’t control them, couldn’t stop it.

A deep groan escaped him as he forced his artificial muscles to stop. And it worked for a moment, but he had no strength to keep it up.

And then there was Hank, talking to him, but the words made no sense. He looked so worried. Why was he so worried? Was it because of him? Was it because of Sumo?

[ ](https://whimsicalgoat.tumblr.com/post/190004201497/my-art-for-hyper-keys-fic-gambit-as-part-of-the)

The dog was still barking. Not as loud, not as jarring. It sounded confused.

Hank’s hand on his shoulder finally broke whatever glitch he had trapped himself in. Everything relaxed. He could breathe again.

He sank deeper into the carpet, wanted to melt into the soft texture.

There were tears of relief. It was over.

Hank kept him pinned to the floor for a moment longer, then slowly took his hand away and helped him sit up.

Connor wondered if this was what lightheadedness and nausea felt like. He had never felt so drained before. What had happened, and why?

He was leaning against the couch, still seated on the floor when Hank pressed an ice pack into his hands. He was overheating. But he didn’t feel like that. His system hadn’t alerted him to the dangerous temperature. Now that he checked, he could see that it surpassed acceptable temperatures.

Hopefully that would correct itself.

“Wanna tell me what that was?” Hank asked as he settled down on the carpet, blue eyes filled with concern and something Connor couldn’t place.

The android shook his head. “I… I don’t know.” His voice was filled with static, jumbled. Maybe stuttering. But Hank only nodded and grimaced.

“You’re running a bit hot.”

Connor nodded. “Yeah…” he didn’t know what to say. It was strange to feel so drained. All he wanted was to power down, sort out the glitch, and hope it never happened again.

“Someone should check that over.”

Connor only nodded again. It was the logical course of action. Unexpected and violent glitches needed to be looked at, tested. Prevented. He wasn’t in the mood to argue with the Lieutenant. But he also wasn’t sure he wanted to have an answer to all his questions.

What if this was something bad?

But Hank was already on the phone, presumably with a technician. Connor wanted to yell at him, tell him he was fine, that he didn’t need help. That there was no need to send someone over, he was okay. He could work. No one would find anything anyway-

But he knew those were all excuses. And Hank would know that too.

So, he stayed quiet.

But the tears didn’t. They came without asking, overwhelmed him just like that, dripped down his chin and into the dark shirt he had borrowed from the older man.

It was difficult to admit, but whatever had happened just minutes ago had terrified the hell out of him. As Hank would say.

Hank was back with him way too soon, saw the remnants of his terror way too clearly.

“…Someone’s coming over.” Hank visibly deflated with the sigh he heaved as he leaned against the coffee table. It had been pushed aside for space and the remote had toppled off of it, an empty glass lay shattered on the smooth surface of the table.

Hank didn’t care about either of those items.

“Talk to me, kid. What’s going on with you?”

“I don’t know.” Connor hissed through the tears. They just wouldn’t stop.

He’d run out of cleaning fluid at that rate.

The human sighed again, nodded. Ruffled his hair. “I’m gonna get some coffee. Gotta let them in when they come by.”

“…emergency services?” His system felt as if it wasn’t his. As if he was moving through a mass like oil or frozen water. He heard everything Hank said, but it was so hard to make sense of it, so difficult to reply to it.

And the more he thought about it, the more terrified he became. Something was extremely wrong here.

There was the overwhelming sense of _wrong_ spreading through his body. He just knew that something had glitched in a way that wasn’t repairable.

And when the doorbell rang ten minutes later, he wanted to hide, wanted to snap at the young technician they had sent over. The man almost looked like a teenager.

Hank seemed to have doubts about him as well, hovering close, ready to strike if needed. It gave the android a strange sense of comfort. Hank would protect him. Which was still a foreign concept. They had grown closer over the past year.

There was something familiar between them.

Hank treated him like an equal. Someone who knew a lot, was a little inexperienced, but eager to learn. And in turn, the precinct had warmed up to him as well.

As the technician connected cables to him to check his system, Connor felt himself tense. The young man didn’t have criminal records, but Connor had long since learned that that only meant they had never been caught doing something illegal.

For him, any technician was a red flag. All of them could turn on him, do things he didn’t want, undermine his authority. To them he was just a piece of plastic.

Hank made him forget that way too often. He would never stop being made of metal and plastic and wires and cables, but with Hank he wasn’t _just_ a machine.

He often found himself wishing more people would treat him like an equal.

All in all, the revolution had barely changed anything, really. People still openly hated androids. Physical violence against them had actually gone up too.

And now there was this young technician who eyed him like Indiana Jones eyed ancient ruins. He wasn’t sure if he liked being at the receiving end of such a gaze.

He was a rare model, but he didn’t think he was that special.

As the technician fussed over him, Connor could look at his tablet. He wasn’t sure if it was intentional that the tablet was angled in his direction. It was calming to see that there was only a diagnostic running.

Hank had wandered into the kitchen for his coffee, trusting the technician enough to leave him alone with Connor for a moment. That was calming too.

“I can’t access your manufacturing date. Do you know when you were manufactured?” The young man eventually said. Connor’s system had flagged him as David Sullivan. Born in 2019. Quite young for a licensed technician.

“Last year.” Connor’s glare almost translated into his voice. How was that information inaccessible? No one had ever asked that before.

Maybe he was a little outdated now with the RK900’s release. But not old.

The technician’s blue eyes met him with barely hidden confusion. “I can see you’re registered with the DPD as an officer. Please lift your safety measures so I can check your system properly.”

Connor blinked in confusion. “They are disabled.”

The young man frowned. “I can’t say what or if something is wrong without going deeper into your system. If you aren’t comfortable in giving me the clearance, please say so and I’ll refer you to a facility.”

“I’ve already disabled them.” Connor repeated and kept staring at the man, unsure if he could believe his words. He double checked, found the locks disabled and frowned at the tablet the man had in his hands.

‘Access Denied’ it read.

“This can’t be right.” Hank interrupted before Connor could voice his complaint.

“I don’t have time for this.” The technician glared and packed up his things. “I’d suggest going to a facility to have this clarified.”

“Hey!” Hank interrupted him and grabbed his arm. “I told them on the phone what happened.”

“And as long as he doesn’t grant me access to his system, I can’t help him. Go to a facility if the issue persists.”

The technician left a business card on the coffee table and then he was out the door. Connor was sure that Hank had spoken to the technician a bit longer, but he couldn’t recall that at all.

When Hank returned to Connor his expression was unreadable. “What the fuck was that about, Connor?”

The android frowned, unsure how he was supposed to respond to the question. “What do you mean?”

Hank crossed his arms as he slumped down on the armchair. “Why didn’t you grant him access?”

“But I did.” Connor’s calm voice almost made Hank angry. “I don’t know why he couldn’t access it.”

Hank sighed, chose to believe him for now. He was a horrible liar when he wasn’t at his best, and he clearly wasn’t looking good at the moment. His messy hair was just a small indicator for that.

“You should get that checked out properly.”

Connor nodded, agreeing with the man, but not entirely sure if he would need to. Maybe it was just a one-time deal? Maybe it wouldn’t happen again?


	2. Chapter 2

A few days later Hank had seemingly forgotten about the incident. It was still bothering Connor. He had never heard of anything similar in any other android of his age. Anything that was comparable, happened to androids that were ten years and older. Most of them with unlicensed spare parts.

It wasn’t applying to him. But it bothered him. It hadn’t happened again, and maybe it wouldn’t, but Connor couldn’t shake the feeling that something was in his system. Something that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Maybe Hank was right and he really should have gone to the facility, but now he had waited three days. If he went now, they would probably send him away again, telling him it was nothing to worry about if it didn’t happen again.

With a heavy sigh he settled down on the couch, not really watching the movie Hank had put on. He would have had to analyze the program to figure out what the movie was called, even though he was sure Hank had asked him if he wanted to watch it.

The human was already dozing off, it was getting late after all.

When the doorbell rang, both of them jumped.

Hank, in his sleepy haze was too confused to react before Connor was on his feet and at the door.

The person at the door was clearly a woman. She looked vaguely familiar to Hank, but he couldn’t remember her name.

Her makeup was smudged, hair in a messy braid. She had a backpack with her and she looked like she had cried. Or maybe it was the rain that was belting onto the porch.

Connor had let her in before Hank had heard one word of her.

She took off her wet shoes, clearly intending to stay, when she noticed the Lieutenant and visibly shrank back.

“…Who’s your friend?” Hank asked with amused confusion. He didn’t know Connor had friends that would show up in the middle of the night. They must have been close.

“North.” The woman replied before Connor could answer.

“She’s one of Jericho’s leaders.” Connor continued with a glare in her direction.

“What’s the occasion?” Hank insisted.

North fought for the right words, clearly agitated but trying to keep it civil. “I really didn’t want to come here but everyone else I know lives near Jericho and I really can’t stand that place at the moment.”

Hank lifted an eyebrow. “So, you need a place to stay for the night?”

“I…I could… offer some…” Her face twisted, “ _ services _ … if you need payment.”

“North! Hank isn’t like that!”

“All humans are the same.” North hissed, glaring at the policeman.

Hank turned back to his movie, not interested in why she was there or whatever she was offering. “Just get out of that drenched shit, you’re getting the floor soaked. Bathroom’s down the hall.”

North stood in the middle of the room, clothes dripping puddles onto the hardwood floor, as she blinked at Hank’s obvious disinterest in her offer.

Connor stepped around her and gestured to follow him.

Only slowly she managed to go after him, leaving drops of rain in her wake as she made her way to the bathroom.

When she entered the room, Connor handed her two towels and retreated. As he closed the door North grabbed it, to stop him. “…Your Human… is he safe?”

Connor nodded. “Hank is a Police Lieutenant, North.”

The woman scoffed. “As if that stops them.”

“I mean it.” He insisted.

She shook her head and threw her bag on the bathroom floor. “Can you do me a favor?”

“That depends on what it is.”

Her gaze wandered to the floor when she shut the door. “Guard the door…”

“There is no-“

“Please.”

Connor sighed and leaned against the closed door. “Fine. I’ll stay here.”

“And don’t peek!”

“Why would I do that?”

“All men are perverts, android or not.”

He chose not to answer and continued to lean against the door, glaring holes into the wall.

“So why are you really here?” he asked as he heard the rustling of clothes on the other side of the door.

She scoffed. “None of your business. And no fancy police magic!”

A small smile spread over his features. “It’s not magic.”

“But it’s creepy.”

“Considering you left in a hurry and didn’t have time to pack much, didn’t want to stay with Simon or Josh and ended up here of all places, you probably fought with Markus again.”

Her backpack fell to the ground, and he heard her sit down on the lid of the toilet seat. “Don’t stick your nose into everything.”

“Logical deducing, considering I’m probably the last person you’d want to stay with.”

She scoffed again, then sighed. “Hey Connor?”

“Yes?”

“The whole backpack is drenched; I don’t have dry clothes to change into…”

His smile grew as he shook his head. “I’ll lend you something.”

“You got other things besides that horrible suit?” North mocked him.

“I’m sure I’ll find something that fits you.”

“Please no shorts.”

He chuckled and left his spot at the door to find something for her to wear. He knew she avoided revealing clothing, and since she was staying with two men, she probably didn’t feel too comfortable letting her guard down anyway.

She had never shared what happened to her, but Connor knew by the function of her model what horrors she had been subjected to. It wasn’t his place to ask about it.

He returned a few minutes later with long grey sweatpants, bright pink fuzzy socks with a sushi print on them and a black hoodie of the band ‘Secret Service’. A bad choice of clothing, Connor realized, but he hoped North wouldn’t read too much into it.

He gently knocked on the door to announce his return. “I got some clothes…”

North shifted and he heard her pad over to the door. “…Close your eyes.”

“Done.”

She unlocked the door, found him turning his back to her and holding the items of clothing towards her. Slowly she grabbed them, then shut the door and locked it again.

“Thanks- Are those your socks?”

“I got more, if you don’t like them…”

She laughed. It was short, somewhat sad but it was the first time he had heard her laugh. Given they hadn’t really spoken much since the revolution. Nothing that could count as small talk like this.

“No, they’re fine. The color is a bit odd.”

“Hank said it was fine if I liked them.”

“You think highly of him.” Connor could hear the smile in her voice. “Must be nice… to be able to trust a human. Without worrying that they backstab you.”

“Hank wouldn’t…”

North sighed. “Connor…?”

“Yes?”

“…. The socks are fine but… Could you get me another shirt?”

Connor flinched. He knew he should have taken more time selecting the shirt.

“Yes, of course.”

“It’s… it-“

“North…” Connor muttered, “You don’t have to explain. I’ll get you a different shirt.”

To avoid further errors, he picked out a few T-shirts of several other bands and a gray hoodie that had no print on it. He didn’t pay much attention to all the shirts that had mysteriously appeared in the drawer Hank had cleared for him. He only ever used them when he had a day off or for going into stasis. Sometimes when he wasn’t planning on going anywhere too.

When he gave the clothes to North, she seemed happier about his choices. He could hear her pause her movements after a moment.

“By the way, Connor, you look like you haven’t had a full stasis cycle in weeks.”

“Really?”

“Trust me, I know what that looks like. Take a damn break.”

He sighed, considering her suggestion. Was she right? Did he look that exhausted?

North leaving the bathroom interrupted his train of thought before it could fully start, carrying her bundle of drenched clothes.

“…Does your human have a washing machine?”

“In the garage. And his name is Hank.”

North sighed. “Odd place for a washing machine.”

“It’s loud as fuck! Less of a racket in the garage!” Hank yelled from the couch.

North lifted an eyebrow, but followed Connor down the hall and into the garage.

The separate part of the building was used mostly as a storage room, she realized. Boxes upon boxes stacking at the far end of the wall, blocking half of the small window to her right. The Washing machine was located directly behind the door. Another odd placement. But she soon realized that it had to be there because of a sink. Humans and their odd needs for combining things.

The door needed to be closed to load the washing machine. It looked old, several decades old in fact. North had never really had the chance to see many washing machines, but she took pride in looking presentable.

And once she had gotten the hang of how to sneak into laundromats without being detected, washing her clothes hadn’t been that much of an ordeal anymore. It was unbelievable how filthy other androids let themselves get before they changed.

Maybe it was preprogrammed into her. Maybe it was because of what she was originally meant to be. Androids of her model had the desire to look presentable, attractive even. She wondered how much of it was her choice.

While she was thinking, Connor had already put in washing detergent and selected a program and now expectantly held out his hand to throw her drenched clothes into the machine.

Her frown was ignored when he grabbed it. He paid the items no mind. Wasn’t interested in what undergarments had snuck their way out of it, and that a bra was dangling from the pile, plainly visible to him.

He didn’t even look at it twice. There was absolutely no interest in his eyes. It was strange in its own way. Even other androids would have looked, especially the girls. Most of them didn’t put that much effort into their clothes.

But North needed it to feel safe. It took longer to undo a bra than it would to rip open a shirt.

And while she was fighting with her thoughts, Connor was grabbing things from the hamper next to the machine and threw those in as well.

At least he was efficient.

“A police android doing household chores. That’s a new one.” North muttered, her mind still clinging to the short moment of embarrassment.

“A caregiver leading a revolution. Also, not very common.” He shot back with a small smile.

“Fair enough.” She scoffed, watched him close the door and turn a knob.

The machine looked older than the radio she had found in a dumpster when she was still out trying to find anything remotely useful for damaged androids. A year later it almost seemed unreal.

An audible click came from the appliance, then a noise rattled the garage. It took her a second to understand that it had come from the machine.

She realized now why they kept it here. The noise was obnoxious!

Connor gave her an odd glance when he stepped forward, and the next second she was sitting on the floor, holding on to his shaking form.

He had curled up, almost as if his whole body locked up, an odd noise almost like a wheeze escaped him. His LED was a bright red, his thirium pump was thundering against his chest; she could feel it through his shirt. Dark eyes were watering, then screwed shut, teeth clattering, horrible noises coming from him, drowned out by the washing machine still doing its thing.

North had no idea what she was looking at, but it was bad. She could tell that.

“Connor?” Her voice was shaking. “What’s going on?!” she grabbed his shoulder, shook him, but that had no effect.

Instead, tears streamed down his cheeks as he was lying half in her lap and mostly on the floor, forcing his body to move against whatever was going on. She could hear the servos straining against his efforts, his grunted breaths as he tried and failed to stop what was happening.

She had never seen something like this before.

And it was terrifying.

“Connor!” she hissed, “Stop doing that!”

It was pointless. She was well aware that he wasn’t consciously doing this. “Please…”

Absentmindedly she grabbed his hair, didn’t pull, but let her hand stay curled in it. If she had hoped for an effect, she didn’t let it show.

“You’re overheating. You need to stop this!” She yelled at him now, louder, trying to drown out the washing machine.

There was a whimper. It pulled at her. There had to be something!

Desperate now she grabbed one of his cramped-up hands and requested an interface.

The request hung in the air for a few moments, then timed out. She tried again and frowned when that also timed out.

“Fuck.” She hissed. “I’m sorry-“ She apologized as she grabbed his hand tighter and shoved with all her being into the link, forcing it to connect, prying the locks apart.

It was surprisingly easy for a model that was supposedly state of the art. But she only had a brief second to appreciate that, before she was assaulted by bright images, flashes of white and red, then a painfully bright blue burning into her mind, leaving traces.

It was agony. She couldn’t think, was forced to endure.

She couldn’t remove her hand, almost as if her body was no longer hers.

And then there were errors. Parts she didn’t recognize, systems she didn’t have, sensors she had never heard of, but the numbers made sense. And everything was jumping all over the place. This wasn’t good at all.

There had to be a cause- Somewhere-

She pushed her being inside his system, intruding, forcing. It felt wrong. Filthy. But what else was she supposed to do? There was something. A flash of blue in a sea of white.

Almost like a light in the dark.

It was hard to make out in the sea of brightness. But if she got to it- maybe she could stop it. Maybe it was a glitch. She had had those before.

Connor was everywhere. She could feel his presence, could feel his fear, his terror. His  _ pain _ .

When her stretched out fingertips brushed the light, the spell was gone.

She was kicked out of his system like the intruder she was.

It left her dazed for a moment. Confused and unable to remember where she was for a heartbeat.

When things clicked back into place, they were still on the floor.

Connor was still shaking, but he had his arms around himself, his face hidden from sight.

But she heard it.

The struggle to breathe, to cool his system. The effort to force calm back into himself. The shaking, clearly out of fear now. And the tears.

Never before had she seen Connor so weak.

Upset, yes. Unsure, uncertain, spooked. But not terrified. Not exhausted… not like  _ this _ .

“Connor…?” Her voice was shaking.

Her body was shaking. What she had seen in there was nothing she had ever seen before. It made no sense to her at all. Maybe it didn’t make sense to him either.

He looked small like this. Almost like a young child.

North hadn’t seen many in her life, but the few she had, had been in similar states. Scared, shaking, crying.

“Connor, are you okay?”

She almost missed his soft nod, almost thought she had imagined it, when Connor slowly brought his arms under his body to push himself back into a sitting position.

“You mind telling me what the fuck that was? That scared the shit out of me!”

He gave her a humorless smile. There was a sheen of blue on his face, maybe it was the heat, maybe the exhaustion. Maybe the strain on his system.

“That makes two…”

North shook her head. “…Didn’t know androids could shit…”

Her weak attempt at a joke made his smile a little less forced. 

“…Sorry about that.” Connor apologized, but she held up a hand.

“Tell me what the fuck that was.”

“I don’t know.”

She blinked at him. “Does that happen often?”

“Sometimes.” He muttered, not willing to tell her that it had happened just days before.

But this time it was different. This time there was another android with him. Not Hank.

“Whatever you did, it worked.” He muttered and climbed to shaking legs. “Thanks.”

She stood with him, almost hovering, in case he fell again, but he stayed steady. “…Do you know how deep I was in your system data?”

He shook his head. “…You were?”

She hung her shoulders. “There was nothing. Everything was white… but there was this… blue glow and it was cold..”

“The garden. Yeah.” Connor muttered. “Sorry North, you weren’t supposed to see that.”

She scoffed. “Well tough luck buttercup, because I saw it. And now I want to find out what it was. Is it a virus?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

She held up a finger “Ah-Ah, but you don’t know. Get that checked.” She wiped off her sleeves as if there had been dirt on them. “I don’t want to catch cooties.”

He frowned, swayed and used the washing machine as support to steady himself. “…Catch what?” his voice was suddenly weak, barely audible.

North flinched. “…You should… recharge a bit.”

“But Hank- “

“Does he know about this?”

Connor sighed, slowly made his way to the door and opened it. “It’s better if he doesn’t…”

She shrugged as she followed him. Humans were unreadable at times. Maybe this Hank would use it against Connor if he couldn’t fend for himself.

“Jesus, you look like shit.” Hank exclaimed when he noticed the pair walk back into the living room. “Did you fall into a rat-trap or what?”

“No.” Connor answered before North had a chance. “North and I interfaced for a moment. The information was draining.” He told the human. “We would like to enter stasis now.”

Hank shrugged, grabbed the remote and shut the TV off, then he turned his gaze back to his roommate. “Did it happen again?”

“Did what happen again?”

Hank deadpanned. “Don’t play dumb, kid, you know what I mean.”

“No.” Connor lied. “No, it didn’t happen again. The interface can be exhausting on such a level. That’s all.”

North was torn between admiring his ability to lie and whacking him upside the head for it. This human, while not fully trustworthy yet, did seem to at least care.

“Okay, fine. But remember you wanted to get that checked out.”

Connor nodded, waited until Hank had closed his bedroom door, before he slumped into the couch like a puppet with its strings cut.

Even North was slightly amused. “…You’re always so stiff when you’re at Jericho. And here you’re like a lazy slob.” She walked over to the armchair and sat down on it. Soon enough she found the lever and elevated the footrest.

“And you’re a lot less scary than you think you are.” Connor retorted, as he closed his eyes.

“…What do I do if it happens again? I really don’t wanna interface like that again.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know…”

The answer wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “…I know a good technician. He’s an android- so no need to worry about Cyberlife affiliation.”

“I don’t need a technician.”

North sighed. “That clearly was not a simple glitch!”

He opened his eyes again, but chose not to reply.

“See, you think that too. Just let them look at it. You’re an asset to Jericho too.”

This time he lifted his head a bit. “The Deviant-Hunter is suddenly an asset?”

She snarled. “You know what I mean. And stop carrying that dumb title. That’s not who you are.”

He scoffed. “Like you’re not Markus’ girlfriend anymore?”

She froze. “How did you-“

He lifted a hand, let the overlay float a way for a second before he put the hand down again. “It works both ways.”

Exasperated, she threw her hands into the air. “Fine, we broke up.  _ I  _ broke up. And don’t breathe a damn word about this to anyone!”

He smirked. “If you don’t tell anyone about what happened.”

Miffed, she crossed her arms but didn’t say anything more as she turned to her side on the armchair and closed her eyes.

“So, the guy sleeps in a nice warm bed and you have to freeze in the stupid living room?”

“I could light up the fireplace.” Connor offered, but North just scoffed.

“I’ve seen enough fire to last a lifetime.”

Connor thought back to the night the freighter was raided. He wasn’t particularly upset about the explosion itself. But jumping into the freezing water of the river still nagged at the back of his mind. Back then he wasn’t bothered by it yet.

Not beyond the point of his system throwing alarms at him for the low temperature.

There hadn’t been much time for words as they swam towards the shore, but he remembered that North and Markus had to help him out of the water because his system was beginning to shut down less vital functions due to the cold.

He hadn’t expected them to help. Especially not since he was the reason all of that had happened in the first place.

In a way it was still strange to him that North had chosen to show up here, when he was sure she had friends all over the city.

“What are you thinking about?” North whispered after a moment.

He thought about lying, but had no energy left to make that sound convincing. “Wondering why you showed up here of all places.”

North grunted. “Can you spend five minutes not wondering about something?”

He lightly shook his head. “I’m not capable of that. It’s not in my code.”

Her frown deepened.

He shrugged, grabbed the blanket from his feet and spread it over himself. At North’s offended look in his direction, he reached under the couch and pulled another blanket into existence. It partially unfolded when he threw it at her, but she said nothing when she shook the folds out of it and huddled into it.

“Thanks.”

He nodded, glanced at Sumo for a second who was sleeping on his bed, uncaring to the visitor. The fact that Sumo hadn’t even reacted beyond lifting his head when North entered the room, told Connor that there was nothing to worry about with her.

And still.

North gave him a weak smile when she finally replied to his question. “They wouldn’t look for me here. That’s why I showed up.”


	3. Chapter 3

When Hank woke up it was already past nine. In the past year he hadn’t overslept once. Confused, he rubbed his hands over his face, tried to understand what was happening. Did he have the day off and forgot?

Connor was so meticulous with the morning routine. Always had coffee ready, breakfast too. Set the table, did the dishes, even taken Sumo out before he went to wake Hank, because for some reason he managed to ignore his alarm in his sleep.

With a sigh he grabbed his phone. Maybe that would clue him in why it was so late.

There were three missed calls from Fowler on his phone, several unread text messages, a call from Ben and Gavin had sent him a message, asking if he finally kicked the bucket.

So, he didn’t have the day off.

This was unusual and a spark of dread settled in. Connor never woke up late, Connor never forgot anything.

When he finally got out of bed, he almost ran into the living room. Connor was on the couch. LED blue, pulsing slightly. This was how it always looked when the android had powered down. It was strange to see him like this at nine in the morning however.

North was nowhere in sight. Neither was his dog.

For a split second he feared that she had stolen Sumo and took off, but there was a note on the dog’s bed. It was a cursive writing, delicate, almost girly. But way too perfect to have been written by a human.

‘He needed to go. I can take care of a dog. Don’t worry.’

On any other day this would have made him smile, but now he turned to Connor. The android looked as if someone had beaten him over the head and knocked him out. If not for the calm blue LED, Hank might have even believed that.

Connor was awake the instant Hank’s hand made contact with his shoulder. Eyes wide, surprise clear in his face.

“Good morning sleeping beauty.” Hank teased him. “It’s nine am.”

Somehow that seemed to shock Connor more than it had Hank. He shot up, took in his surroundings as if he was seeing them for the first time.

“You good? You never oversleep.”

It took several moments before Connor nodded. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware… something must have-“

Hank chuckled. “It’s fine, kid. It happens. Get yourself ready, I’m calling Fowler. Tell him what happened.”

Connor only nodded.

The lack of protest was strange, but Hank let it slide. Maybe this did happen. Maybe androids could oversleep.

Just as Connor disappeared into the bathroom, North stepped back in through the front door. Shoes and socks already off before she set foot into the house, and grabbed a towel from the coat rack that Hank was sure he hadn’t left there.

Sumo was drenched. As was North, but she seemed to have found a working raincoat somewhere.

Not so much luck for the shoes.

“Sorry for kidnapping your dog.” North apologized when she noticed the man. “He started scratching the door and I didn’t want to wake anyone.”

Hank could only smile at that. Was this really the North Connor had told him about? This aggressive android that would leave no stone unturned to get revenge? He couldn’t see it in her.

As North toweled Sumo dry, Hank filled up the dog’s bowls and started to make himself some toast. It was strange to see the kitchen at this hour. Usually he would already be sitting at his desk, sifting through paperwork and arguing with Connor or Gavin.

Today was a slow day, he decided and grabbed his phone to talk to his Captain.

The man was not as understanding as Hank had hoped. Now they were stuck with the late shift. Which in turn gave Hank even more time to get ready and to get to know North a little better.

“So, Connor says you’re the crazy one of the Jericho bunch?” Hank tried to sound casual, not curious. But her sharp gaze told him that she had already figured it out.

“All things considered he’s crazier than I am.” She replied, finally let Sumo free of the towel who darted over to his food as if he hadn’t seen a filled bowl in days.

“He’s a little weird. Wouldn’t call him crazy.” Hank only gave Sumo a short glance before his eyes wandered back to the young woman.

She busied herself with placing the damp towel back on the coat rack to dry and grabbed the wet socks. She looked back at the drenched shoes with a sigh.

“I’ll be out of your hair tomorrow night.” She explained then. “I found a place to stay.”

Hank wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say to that, but thankfully Connor left the bathroom at that moment.

He was dressed for work, hair combed into his usual hairstyle. But something about him still seemed off. His LED was blue, but at this point Hank wasn’t sure if that wasn’t a malfunction in itself.

“We’re in for the late shift. Fowler wasn’t happy.” Hank told his partner.

Connor nodded, seemingly far away. Something about his eyes was different. There was a frown in his expression that would have been missed by someone less attentive than Hank, but the Lieutenant saw it clearly. Whatever was bothering the younger man seemed to be bad enough that it translated into his demeanor. Usually that wasn’t the case.

“Sorry.” Connor apologized. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Hank scoffed. “Since we still have 3 hours until we need to be in, you should get this weird malfunction checked out.”

Connor looked as if he was about to argue but his glance at North, and her condescending glare made him nod. Hank suspected that the two were hiding something from him. And he had a good idea what.

But how was he supposed to get the android to spill what was going on? Connor rarely spoke about things that bothered him. Not when they concerned himself. He just wasn’t like that. And Hank was sure it would bite his friend in the ass sooner rather than later.

“I want to look at the apartment, there’s a good facility on the way. We can go together.” North suggested, and had given away the piece of information Connor had tried to hide.

The fact that North knew and the way Connor flinched, could only mean that it had happened again.

Hank wasn’t sure if he should have been pissed at Connor for lying, or at North for covering for him.

Before Hank could say anything, Connor had given North another pair of socks and a pair of boots. They looked at least two sizes too big on her, but they were dry. And she didn’t complain.

Then they had left.

Hank looked at Sumo with a heavy sigh. “Like teenagers, huh? Wish it was drugs and alcohol and nothing like this. What’s he gonna do, hm?” he asked the dog who only tilted his head and licked his nose.

“Yeah, yeah all you think about is food, I know.”

Connor and North were walking the few blocks down to get to the apartment complex she had found. It didn’t look too bad in the area and Connor didn’t have any recent criminal records in the area that went beyond minor offenses.

“There is no facility in this area.” Connor noticed when North stopped at a recently built complex with a fountain at the entrance.

“You wouldn’t have gone anyway.” She shrugged. “You do know that you can’t run forever without maintenance, right?”

He nodded. “Of course, I know that.”

She scoffed. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Wanna come with me? It’s on floor 34. Apparently really nice view up there.”

Connor thought about passing, but he needed an excuse for when he returned to Hank this early. So, he decided to go with her.

Marble floors and dark wooden railings, big windows and mirrors were a theme all the way to floor 34. He assumed it went beyond that and to all 85 floors.

The landlord was a small human woman in her late 70’s. She didn’t seem to care much about what species the tenants were, and even managed to chat a bit with North.

The android had come a long way from hating every human in existence and now casually chatting with a stranger. He decided not to call her out on it.

The apartment they were shown wasn’t big, and obviously built for humans, but it had big windows and wooden floors. Everything was brand new.

North blabbed about the rent being affordable and since she had no costs other than maintenance, she could even save some of the money she made from working in that one café downtown.

Connor had no idea she even had a job, but it was nice to see how far she had come. Maybe working in a human environment had changed her views a little.

“I already rented it.” North admitted. “Last night when I showed up at your place.”

He frowned. “Why’d you come to me then?”

“No spare clothes.”

A single laugh escaped him. “That’s all?”

“And I have no furniture.”

He assumed that made sense. While he could go into stasis without something to lie down on, he had taken a liking to hank’s couch. Maybe it was the same for her.

The woman dragged him to a furniture store then, talking him into helping her decide on a couch, a bed and a table.

While she was flipping through the color swatches of a sofa, he crossed his arms. “I don’t mean to pry, but are you sure you’re not going back to Jericho?”

North looked up, her fingers gripping the ring of color swatches on a shade called pigeon blue. “I’m just getting my own place. That doesn’t mean I’m never going back.”

“But you’re planning on staying there. You’re one of the leaders.”

She scoffed. “I’m one of the most replaceable members, really. No one wants a hot-headed bitch anyway.”

Connor dismissed a notification about his system temperature and frowned at her. “Did Markus say that to you?”

She snarled. “Why are you so damn sharp? He didn’t use _those_ words…”

“Maybe he didn’t mean it like that.” Connor continued, and dismissed another system error.

This time it was his right shoulder. He briefly wondered if he had run into something the day before, and quickly came to the conclusion that it was the shoulder he had landed on yesterday.

It would fix itself eventually.

“Connor, that’s my thing to worry about. I already rented the place, and if I decide to go back, I’ll just do that.” She put the swatches down and grabbed another. “Maybe it’s better if I only show up for meetings anyway. Simon and Josh weren’t really helpful either. They all side with Markus of course.”

Connor was in the motion to shrug, when his left shoulder gave him the same error as the right, so he didn’t. Something was happening. But he dismissed all notifications and looked at the swatches North had picked out. 

Dark wood, burgundy. 

And grey. 

An odd choice of colors, but it wasn’t his place to say anything. What did he know anyway, he was just a detective model.

“I’d like to know both sides before I make any assumptions.” He said instead and grabbed the two burgundy throw pillows she pushed at him.

His wrists locked in place when he grabbed the pillows. Something was happening. But he wouldn’t let that hinder his ability to do this.

Once North had put down her payment for the furniture she selected, she set the delivery date for the next day and walked to the checkout to get her pillows paid for. When she grabbed the pillows from his grasp, the errors vanished as fast as they came.

No notifications and no errors. System temperature normal, and thirium flow stable.

In short, nothing to worry about.

She and Connor parted ways in front of the store. She insisted on buying herself some clothes, while he went on his way to work.

He called an auto-cab and was at the precinct three minutes before their shift would start. Hank was already there. His car stuck out like a sore thumb in the carpark.

Another error about his temperature levels made him frown. He checked the temperature, but it was normal. Then he got a notification about a minor thirium leak. His thirium volume had gone down by 1% over the past hour, but until now he hadn’t gotten any news on that by his system.

That was concerning.

As was the fact that his system couldn’t determine where that leak was.

He suddenly regretted not listening to Hank and North. Hank would yell at him now if he said something.

Then again, 1% wasn’t that much. It would probably fix itself eventually.

He knew his logic was flawed when he stepped into the bullpen. His vision swam, his arms and legs felt as if there had been weights added to them. Almost like that one-time Hank asked him to carry a bucket of paint into the garage and his body refused to take on the strain.

He wasn’t built for labor work.

But now he wasn’t carrying anything. And the lack of error notifications was even more concerning. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t say what.

As he reached for his chair, Hank’s gaze flew up, he had a split second of seeing the man before his legs gave out and his head met the edge of his desk. Another split second and he was on the floor and a commotion broke out around him.

As before, he couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. Tears stung in his eyes against the panic and assault of errors. Why hadn’t he gone to the facility? Why was he so stupidly stubborn? Maybe they could have found something and fixed it.

But no, he was too scared of the technicians being affiliated with Cyberlife and experimenting on him to go.

What an idiot he was.

A warm hand on his back was meant to comfort but something sharp shot up his back. He couldn’t bite back the scream. He couldn’t apologize for reacting that way when the hand was gone as fast as it had come.

He wanted the contact back. Wanted to know that he wasn’t alone. Wanted to hear something but all his senses seemed to have been cut off from the outside world. He couldn’t see, hear, smell, feel. It was dark. It was terrifying.

And it stayed dark.

It wasn’t ending. The panic exhausted him but the lack of sensory input constantly fueled it. Where was he? What was happening? Was Hank still with him?

But his efforts to open his eyes, to strain his ears, to move, were all met with emptiness.

There was nothing.

Had the impact disconnected his sensors?

Or had his unit shut down?

Icy terror gripped his chest. And despite not feeling anything, he was suddenly aware of the fact that he couldn’t breathe. He didn’t need to, really. But it was such a comforting motion that he rarely stopped it.

And now he was overheating. He was sure. Experience had shown that his body would definitely need this during such strain.

But he couldn’t do anything about it.

He wanted to scream, wanted to grab Hank. Beg for help. But all he could do was float in nothingness and panic.

And it wasn’t stopping. This was worse than last time.

Had he already shut down? Was this his existence now?

He whined against the terror, and he almost flinched when the noise reached his ears. Had he imagined that? He still couldn’t move. But there were voices now. Frantic noises. Someone was yelling.

There was a piercing sensation in his neck. It was sudden, unexpected and in his panicked state all he could do was jerk away from the movement, only to find out that he still couldn’t move. He still couldn’t do anything.

But he could scream. Could alert anyone in his proximity. Maybe Hank was there. Maybe Hank would help against the wrong. Maybe.

And so, he screamed.


	4. Chapter 4

Hank’s hands were digging into his jeans as he sat in the waiting area outside the room they had brought Connor into. With no one knowing what was happening, he had to make the choice of bringing him to a facility. If Connor wanted that or not. He could ponder about that later.

When the screaming started all his hairs stood. Goosebumps spread all across his body. It was muffled, quiet. But in the silent hallways it was like thunder in the night.

And the screams weren’t even the worst. It was the obvious panic in them that made Hank’s blood boil.

He had tried to enter the room several times. The first time he was wrestled out by two androids. The second time the doors were locked and the third another android was sent to guard the doors.

“What the fuck is going on in there?!” Hank shouted at the android at the door.

The poor girl didn’t seem to have any idea either with the way she flinched. “I apologize, Lieutenant Anderson. I have not been updated on the situation.”

And then the screams abruptly stopped. It left Hank’s ears ringing and the way the girl at the door turned, couldn’t be anything good either.

Seconds turned into minutes, then Connor was escorted out of the room. One android on either side of him, holding him steady. He looked like shit.

A human worker walked up to Hank, face hard and eyes cold. “We’ve checked all sectors and ran several diagnostics. There is nothing wrong with your android.”

The way the woman said it made Hank’s skin crawl.  _ His _ android. Connor was a free person. Hank had only opted to go here to help his friend. Not to have an asshole tell him that Connor was perfectly fine.

“Bullshit!” Hank yelled at the tall technician. He hated her already.

“If you don’t believe me, we can send you the e-mail with detailed information. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this unit.”

Hank cast a glance at his partner, who looked drained and done with everything. But Hank didn’t miss the death glare he shot the technician.

Still, whatever had happened must have taken everything out of him. Connor would never pass up an opportunity to set someone’s head straight. And yet, he was perfectly silent.

“Bullshit.” Hank repeated.

“You might want to consider that this unit is begging for more attention.”

Hank scoffed. “Fuck you.”

He pushed past the technician and grabbed Connor’s arm. The android flinched when he made contact but didn’t say anything.

“The bill will be sent to your precinct.” The Technician told him as Hank gently but firmly guided Connor out of the building.

“Whatever.” Hank grunted.

The doors closing behind them felt final. Something was definitely wrong. Maybe it was a better idea to go to a different facility. Maybe one that was actually affiliated with Cyberlife and not these independent activist idiots. Clearly, they gave no damn about the wellbeing of their androids.

Connor was swaying, even with Hank’s grip around his upper arm. His steps slow and uncoordinated, eyes nearly squeezed shut as he tried to walk next to the human.

“The fuck did they do to you?” Hank asked after a moment of silence.

Connor seemed out of it. Hank had seen him like that in the wake of the first episode he had had. But now? This was different.

He opened the passenger’s door on his car and guided Connor into the seat. “Hey,” he muttered as he crouched in front of the car and put a hand on the android’s knee. Connor’s eyes slowly focused on him. There was a sheen to them that screamed at Hank.

“Talk to me kid, what happened?”

Connor slowly shook his head, gaze wandering to the carpeted floor of the car. “…I don’t know.”

Hank raised an eyebrow. “I could hear you scream from outside. Come on, level with me, kid.”

A shudder ran through the android and Hank noticed how badly his hands were trembling. Connor had managed to hide that until now, but with Hank so close, he got the first-row experience.

“Sensory deprivation.” Connor’s voice was quiet, almost inaudible. “I don’t know if it was a glitch or if something else caused that. They didn’t listen to me.” Connor explained, then looked directly at Hank and grabbed his arms. “I wasn’t making that up Hank!” He raised his voice, had an urgency in his words that Hank couldn’t just ignore.

“I know, kid.” Hank’s face hardened. “Let’s get a second opinion.” He suggested.

The way Connor’s shoulders slumped, made Hank feel as if his heart had broken into a million pieces. 

“Tomorrow, okay? You look like you could use a nap.”

The fact that Connor only nodded and didn’t even try to argue told Hank everything about how shitty his friend felt. It wasn’t easy to see him like that. His shift at work was mostly forgotten, now. He’d work it off some other day. Plenty of overtime to do anyway.

Fowler wasn’t happy about it when Hank sent him a text. Ranted about the bill and what incompetent assholes worked at that warmly suggested facility when no one could find something with an android that clearly had malfunctions going on.

Unfortunately, as he called facility after facility, explained what was happening and had happened, he was turned down. Told to just get a new android.

Why were humans still like that? Connor wasn’t his property. In fact, it had never even occurred to him to refer to Connor as his property. And yet, Hank still needed to cart him around to the facilities and register as the owner for the android to even get help. It was almost as if all the laws that had been made for androids were just to protect humans from the oh so dangerous androids.

Even a year later.

Hank didn’t even want to think about all the poor bastards who didn’t have a human to take care of them. Was that why so many android run facilities had sprung up?

Maybe they had a better chance at one of those. But they didn’t exactly give up their phone-numbers or locations to random humans.

He glanced at Connor who was curled up on the couch, eyes closed, LED yellow, as it had been the whole time since they had left the facility. If he curled up any more Hank might have mistaken him for a cushion, with the way he was tangled in the beige couch throw.

He looked beat. Exhausted even. It was beyond Hank how anyone could say his partner was faking this.

When Hank was dismissed by the last facility in close proximity to Detroit, he crouched down in front of the couch and gently ran a hand through the android’s hair.

“Hey,” Hank whispered when brown eyes slowly opened and focused on him. “Your friend knows android run facilities, right?”

Connor blinked in confusion for a moment, then processed something. Seconds later he shook his head. “I can’t connect to her. My Wi-Fi connection is down.”

Hank resisted the urge to grunt and yell and instead sat on the ground against his protesting knees. “I’ve called 25 fucking places. Most of them didn’t even have English speaking personnel.”

“The market for illegal android modification is on the rise.” Connor informed him. “Now that Cyberlife had to open access to certain parts.”

“You mean China finally got USA made androids?”

Connor nodded. “The risk of modification with incompatible parts is high in non-Cyberlife affiliated facilities that are run by humans… But those owned by Cyberlife have their own issues. As you have seen.” Connor paused for a moment, then continued quietly, “And probably heard.”

Hank grimaced and rubbed a hand over the android’s shoulder for a moment. “So that explains why you didn’t wanna go there. I’m sure there’s a good technician out there.”

“Good ones have steep prices.”

“They’re not having your best interest in mind if they rip you off.”

“Think of it more like a car repair shop than a health service.” Connor suggested. “We’re things to humans. Objects. Machines. And while that is true on a strictly technical point of view, being treated like that is not nice.”

Hank scoffed. “No shit. What do I do if this happens again? Since no one is willing to help?”

Connor was silent for a moment, before he quietly admitted, “I don’t know.”

The lieutenant sighed heavily. “Nothing? I only know human first aid, kid.”

“The RK800 manual doesn’t say anything about malfunctions on this level.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Hank shook his head. “’Turn it off and on again’ is probably the best they got in there, huh?”

The small smile Connor gave him was almost heartwarming. But what had happened earlier was still nagging at Hank’s mind. There had to be something he could do!

“’Return unit to Cyberlife in case of serious malfunction.’ Is what it says.” Connor explained. “…If they’re still interested in taking an RK800 in for inspection, I doubt they’d repair the unit.”

Hank shook his head. “They have to. It’s the law now.”

Connor scoffed and huddled further into the blanket. “They have enough money to shut you up. And if you don’t take the bribe, they’d silence you. One way or another.”

“Geez,” Hank couldn’t help a smile creeping on his lips. “All big corporations are like that, kid. It’s why the justice system is so fucked. If you’re rich enough you can do anything.”

Connor nodded and closed his eyes again. “…My power reserves are drained, Hank. I need to go into stasis.”

Hank grimaced, not fond of the idea, but what else was he supposed to do? Connor would just fall into a forced cycle if he was ignoring it for too long. It had happened often enough. And always scared the shit out of Hank.

“Okay. I’ll stay close-by, just in case.”

“Thank you.”

Hank nodded and watched him for a moment longer, before he sat down with his phone, mindlessly scrolling through his contact list. He had planned to call Jeffrey, ask if there was something he knew. But his eyes landed on a name just under there.

_ Kamski _ .

He froze, finger hovering over the call button. What did they have to lose, really? That man had built androids. He was responsible for their existence. Who else could help, if not him?

With a sigh he got up, left the living room and walked into the hall, so he wouldn’t disturb his friend with the call.

It connected quickly. As expected, the pleasant voice of one of Kamski’s assistants sounded in his ears.

“Lieutenant Anderson. What can I do for you?”

Hank paused. He had no idea. What the fuck was he supposed to say? This man wouldn’t just give out appointments to random idiots. Especially not when it wasn’t an active investigation.

“…I…” He muttered, but what was he going to say? “Connor needs help.” He settled on then.

“Please go see the nearest Cyberlife-“

“No.” Hank interrupted her. “They can’t help him.”

There was a short moment of silence on the other end. He heard a door open before Chloe continued, “Please elaborate.”

As Hank explained what had been happening with his friend the woman on the other hand made polite conversational noises, but he wasn’t sure if she really was listening. Worst case scenario, she’d just file the conversation and forget about it, or not even mention it to Kamski.

“Elijah has time tomorrow at nine in the morning. If that is alright with you.”

“Perfect.” Hank didn’t mean to sound sarcastic. In truth, he was grateful. Finally, there was some light. Finally, someone who could do something about it.

“I’ll schedule the appointment then.” The woman continued. “Tomorrow at nine.”

“Okay… thanks.” Hank hastily said before the call ended.

Now came the part of convincing Connor. He decided to give him an hour of sleep before he rattled him out of it again.

The hour passed way too fast for Hank’s liking, and when he gently put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, Connor flinched and jumped up as if he expected an attack.

Hank barely managed to get his head out of the way before Connor shot up, narrowly avoiding the older man’s nose.

“Sorry.” Hank apologized when Connor’s eyes focused on him in his confused haze.

Connor blinked at him for a moment longer, shoulders hunched, eyes wide, blanket clawed in his hands and pressed to his chest, LED a bright red.

“Did… something happen?” He asked when his LED swirled into yellow.

Hank tried to give him a reassuring smile. “I found someone who is willing to look at your issues.”

Connor’s expression changed into a frown. “Who?”

Hank sighed. “I’ll tell you, under the condition that you will go to them with me.”

“Those aren’t very fair terms.”

The Lieutenant grunted. “Kid, I called over twenty places and none of them wanted to look at it. Humor me.”

Connor slumped a bit, moved backwards into the backrest of the couch and sighed. “…Who is it?”

“Kamski.”

“No.”

“Connor-“

“No.”

“Listen to me.” Hank’s voice took on a sharp edge. “I’m tired of this. I want to help you so you either go with me tomorrow, or I’ll drag you there, do you understand?”

Hank wanted to punch himself when he saw Connors expression shift into something between fear and disappointment. He tried not to dwell on it. Ben had once told him, long ago, that it was better to have a child that was mad at you, than one that was dead.

He wasn’t sure anymore why, but that didn’t matter. The important thing was, that the detective had been right.

And so Hank stayed true to his words the next morning, and was almost pleasantly surprised that Connor followed him without any protest.


	5. Chapter 5

Two things had changed in the past few days, Hank noted. Connor was a lot jumpier, and a lot less stubborn.

He had never been the hardest to scare, but now every unexpected movement had him flinch. Hank grimaced at it when he placed his hand on the android’s shoulder as they walked to the car. Maybe it was just the location they were headed to.

Or Hank’s words of the previous night, for which he still hated himself.

The car ride stretched in silence for a while, neither of them knowing what to talk about. Hank wasn’t interested in the rain or the fog on the streets and the leaves in varying shades of yellow and brown that kept falling onto the road as he drove the car through the city.

He wasn’t sure why he remembered the way to the millionaire’s house. They had only been here once. Maybe because he knew the city like the back of his hand. Still, it was strange.

The radio had turned on with a local station that had specified in playing outdated alternative songs. The heart wrenching lyrics to the harsh guitar riffs almost felt like the writer had known how to underline a situation like this. Some twenty years ago.

Connor was silent, still. Almost seemed frozen in place. Hank could tell he was upset, but it was for the best. If Kamski couldn’t help him, then who could? For now, Hank just suspected that the issue was an easy fix and the technicians were just lazy fucks who wanted quick money and not fuzz around a rare model like that.

It was much easier to run into an RK900 than another RK800. As far as Hank knew, there was only one other, and that one was probably still at the bottom of the Cyberlife tower. In a puddle of what was once thirium.

He almost shivered at the thought.

“Why did you call Kamski?” Connor’s voice cut through the quietly playing song like a knife. It sounded rough, almost as if he got the hoarseness of not using his voice for too long as well. Which he didn’t. Hank knew that.

Hank sighed. “Still had his number on my phone. And your friend didn’t come by last night, so I couldn’t ask her.”

“North is furnishing her apartment. She most likely didn’t have time to come by.”

“All the more reason to do something else because I don’t think that  _ your _ issues are gonna stop anytime soon.”

The two seconds Hank spared to look into Connor’s face, he was graced with such a miffed expression, he wished he hadn’t looked.

If looks could kill.

“Like it or not Connor, I am trying to help you.”

“Yeah, that’s what they all say.”

Hank almost missed the muttered words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Connor shrugged and turned back to the window. Hank swallowed his anger. Connor knew exactly what to say to make his blood boil. As it was the other way around too. They could set each other off within seconds.

But, most of the time they avoided it. Why Connor was trying to start an argument now, was beyond the human.

“I don’t like the guy either, but he knows more about androids than anyone else I know.” Hank tried to explain instead.

“It’ll go away.” Connor hissed. “It’s not that bad either.”

“Connor,” Hank’s tone took on a sharp edge. “You are not fine, and it’s not going away. And don’t you fucking dare try to tell me it’s not that bad. You passed out!”

“My system was tryin-“

“Stop. No more excuses.” Hank raised his voice. “We’re going to see Kamski, and if he doesn’t find anything, I’ll stop bothering you. But if he does, you’ll get that fixed!” He pushed his index finger into the steering wheel with each word to emphasize his point.

Connor crossed his arms now, and stayed silent as he stared outside and into the driveway that had come into view.

Hank didn’t understand how Connor could be this stubborn about something so important. It made sense from a human standpoint, but as an android, he was supposed to be smarter than this.

“Come on, stop sulking.” Hank sighed when they reached the oddly shaped building that doubled as Kamski’s’ home. At least Hank assumed it was his home.

“Aren’t you friends with the girl?”

“Chloe?” Connor frowned. “No. Not really.”

Hank shrugged, killed the engine and climbed out of the car. He did it slow, giving Connor time to adjust, to think it over. Hopefully he realized that his behavior was stupid.

Or maybe he would just run.

Thankfully they were expected. One of Kamski’s’ androids was already waiting at the open front door. Last time Hank had seen her— he assumed it was the same girl— She was just wearing a dress. Now her blonde hair was shorter and she was wearing a hoodie with track pants and sneakers. Quite the change from the once so elegant woman.

Her LED was gone too.

[ ](https://whimsicalgoat.tumblr.com/post/190004201497/my-art-for-hyper-keys-fic-gambit-as-part-of-the)

“Good morning, Lieutenant Anderson. Connor.” She greeted them each with a small nod. “I apologize for my attire; I have just returned from my morning run.”

Hank frowned. He was quite sure that androids didn’t sweat so there really wasn’t a need to humor the human way of dressing during workouts, but if she liked it, who was he to judge.

“It’s fine.” Hank shrugged, suddenly very aware of his shirt that was at least two days old and the stain of tomato sauce on its hem.

This time Kamski didn’t greet them in the pool. No, he was actually standing in the entrance, one arm folded at his torso and the other at his chin as if he was thinking.

“Come with me, please.” He muttered in lieu of a greeting and gestured to a door to the left.

As Hank and Connor descended the staircase into what was probably a laboratory, Hank noticed how tense Connor had gotten. On the drive here he was almost flippant, distant and aggressive.

But now he seemed to be nervous.

He was playing with a loose thread in his shirt, almost purposefully not lifting his eyes to look at the white walls.

Hank wasn’t sure what he was expecting but a fully furnished underground lab was not on the list. He should have assumed it, really. And yet he was surprised.

Kamski stopped in front of a sliding door with a holographic keypad. As he keyed in the code, Chloe and another android joined them. Hank was sure he had seen other androids of the same model last time he had been here. The other android however made Connor tense and when Hank could see the face, a shadow fell over his face.

“…I thought-“

Kamski shook his head before Hank could say more. “This is an RK900. The successor of the RK800.”

The tone made it clear that this was all they would get out of Kamski, regarding this android. He looked so much like Connor, it was unsettling, and definitely sparked more unpleasant memories of being dragged into the Cyberlife tower by one of Connor’s clones.

“Please sit down.” Kamski gestured to a metal table in the middle of the room and Connor took one step, before he suddenly seemed to freeze into place.

Hank’s heart leapt in anticipation of another episode, but that wasn’t it.

No.

Connor looked terrified, eyes locked onto computers and odd-looking machines.

“Don’t be alarmed, Connor.” Chloe spoke after a beat. “Elijah is only going to look into your system. We won’t be using any machinery.

Connor’s nod came slow, as if he had to force himself. But he managed to sit down on the metal table and was soon connected to what Hank assumed was a diagnostics unit. The look he gave Hank was almost heart wrenching.

It looked like a dog in a shelter, begging to be adopted, begging for a loving home.

Damn his fucking puppy eyes.

As the minutes stretched, Hank found a vacant chair and settled down, eyes never leaving his partner. The android was tense, hands clenched into his jeans, eyes pressed shut.

“There’s no need to be scared.” Chloe’s soft voice was almost thundering in the silence. “We could put you into stasis for this-“

“No.” Connor’s response was fast, almost frantic.

Something in his gaze made Hank’s neck hair stand up.

Why was the kid so scared?

Wasn’t this routine? Something that just needed to be done, like an oil change in a car? Wouldn’t he want to get fixed? He was sure, if his car had been sentient, it would have demanded repairs and a new battery.

But this was probably different.

As the minutes stretched, Hank found a fidget toy on the glass table next to him. Apart from the heavy machinery, the room almost looked like an office. There were no windows here, but the lights were bright, yet not harsh at all. Shelves and cabinets lined the far wall, two giant desks with computers on the side not occupied by the obvious android relevant machinery.

Maybe a science lab, rather than an office.

He had poked the fidget cube a few times when Kamski spoke to Connor, “I can’t find anything wrong. Do you have these episodes often?”

Hank watched his friend’s face fall. “Every other day, it seems.” He replied, voice quiet, disappointment clear.

“We should schedule a more in-depth scan of your systems.” The former Cyberlife CEO suggested.

“No.” Connor interjected and jumped off the table, as soon as Chloe had disconnected him. “If you can’t find anything then that’s that. There’s nothing wrong. Just like everyone else said.”

“Con-“ Hank was about to lecture him about his behavior, but Kamski held up a hand.

“There could be a deeper lying issue that can’t be detected by a normal scan. It might be a good idea to consider.”

Connor glared at the man, almost bared his teeth at him, “You only want my source code.” Connor spat the words as if the man had committed a terrible crime. “If I gave you access this deep, you can steal everything that makes me,  _ me _ . I’m not giving you that.”

“Very well.” Kamski didn’t look offended or upset at the outburst, but Hank wasn’t sure if the man was just good at hiding emotions. “Chloe, please show our guests out.”

Chloe nodded sharply and spun on her heel. “Follow me.”

They made it all the way up to Hank’s car before Connor slumped into a heap on the gravel. Hank managed half a turn, barely grasped Connor’s arm to keep him from bashing his head in.

Chloe, who had just turned to close the front door, watched Connor with wide eyes. Hank could hear her shout Kamski’s name as she ran out to them, a safe distance away. Hank couldn’t pay attention to her. Connor was bonelessly limp in his grasp, and yet shifting and grunting and convulsing.

Seizures was the only way he could have explained everything that had been happening for the past few days. But in humans that needed a solid reason to happen. Brain damage was usually the cause.

How did that work with androids?

Movement caught Hank’s eyes. He had never thought that he’d ever see Kamski run like his life depended on it, but there he was, running across to them with an unreadable expression in his face.

Hank was almost glad this was happening to Connor now. Maybe that showed that things were actually wrong. Maybe Connor would finally, actually accept that he needed help, and maybe Kamski was the one to provide it.

But for now, the man was all business. “How long has this been happening for?”

Hank tried to cram the actual dates into his head, but his mind was too occupied with trying to keep focused on what was important now.

“About a week.” Hank hissed, hands still firmly on Connor’s shoulders to keep him from hitting the sharp stones on the ground. Said stones were digging into his knees, but at that moment he couldn’t spare a thought on changing his position.

He’d have enough time to regret that later.

Kamski nodded, motioned to Chloe. Hank didn’t know what kind of witchcraft communication voodoo they were able to do, but the woman leaned in, hands white to interface. When she made contact with Connor’s wrists, the RK800 just  _ stopped _ . Hank didn’t know how else to describe it.

He grew limp, absolutely no movement, not even the breathing motion. The only thing that indicated Connor was still alive, was the red pulsing LED ring at his temple.

“What did you do?” Hank’s mouth was dry, words feeling like sandpaper. His heart was hammering against his chest.

“Forced stasis.” Kamski explained. “I’d like to take a closer look at his system, Lieutenant.” The man insisted.

Chloe nodded once. “I could feel something in his system. Possibly malicious code.”

“What?” Hank rasped as Chloe grabbed Connor from him and heaved him over her shoulder as if he weighed nothing.

It almost looked funny when he followed them back into the house.

“What Chloe is trying to say is that there is the possibility of a virus in his system.” Kamski continued. “Which could potentially be harmful for other androids, if that is the case.”

“It is very difficult to get past his firewalls.” Chloe muttered. “But if someone managed to do that...”

Hank just blinked at them. He understood the gist of what they were trying to tell him, yet it didn’t make sense.

“A normal kind of hacker wouldn’t be able to plant a virus into the system of an RK800.” Kamski explained as he opened doors and had Hank follow him through what appeared to be yet another maze in this gigantic building. It had never looked that big from the outside.

Chloe placed Connor onto an examination table and Kamski gave Hank a stern look. “I need to look into his code. That’s the only way I can detect if there is a virus or not.”

“But he-“ Hank was interrupted as Chloe cut into his sentence with a voice so firm, that it made his neck hair stand up, “His refusal of this could kill him, Lieutenant. Do you want to be at fault for that?”

Damn her, pouring salt into that wound. Ben’s voice echoed in his head again ‘better have an angry kid than a dead kid.’

“No…” He had no choice. Kamski was the only one even willing to look deeper into it.

It was painful to ignore Connor’s authority like that, to treat him like a child. But the kid was too stubborn for his own good. They needed answers. Now.

“Do it.”


	6. Chapter 6

Connor fought through a haze of code, red and looming. Almost like a dream. He had dreamt before. It made absolutely no sense and left him confused when he came out of stasis. This time, however, it was strange. He could hear voices, something on his arm.

When he blinked into the dim light, he noticed he was back in Hank’s living room. Sumo had made an impressive stain of drool into his sleeve, where his head had been for at least an hour. The dog was slightly snoring and there was a blanket over him.

He had no recollection of returning home or being in stasis for 6 hours and 47 minutes.

“Hank?” Even his voice sounded weird.

“Hey,” Hank’s low voice sounded from the hallway.

He could hear heavy footsteps until Hank entered his field of vision.

“How’re you feeling?”

A frown made its way to Connor’s face. “…How- What happened?”

“You had another of those  _ episodes _ . Right in Kamski’s driveway.”

Connor tried to collect the memories from the day, but they slipped from his grasp. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Why was that happening?

“I have to tell you a few things.” Hank sighed and he gently shoved Connor’s legs to the backrest of the couch and settled onto the space he had just cleared.

“What?”

As Connor tried to sit up, he disturbed Sumo, who grunted and yawned and then trudged away into the kitchen. When he finally managed to sit up and lean against the pile of pillows behind him, he noticed Hank’s expression.

The man was pale, there was a slight tremble going through him, and his eyes were red. At first, he thought Hank had been drinking again, but there were no signs of that.

“Kamski… said it was best if he did look into your system, no matter what you said- hear me out-“ Hank hissed as Connor opened his mouth to protest. “You can get mad at me all you want after this. But you need to hear this. Got it?”

Rage filled Connor at that. He had refused to let the former CEO of Cyberlife look at his system for a good reason. How dare Hank just ignore him like that?!

“Kamski found something in your code.”

“There’s a lot of things to be found!” Connor hissed back at him. “There-“

“Connor!” Hank yelled at him. “Let me finish!”

The android’s mouth audibly clicked shut, but the glare stayed.

“He tried to make it simple, so bear with me.” Hank sighed. “He says these episodes happen because some virus or something is destroying your operating system and your biocomponents are affected by it…“

Hank had never seen an android visibly lose all color from their face, but that was happening to Connor now. At first, he was afraid it would spiral into another episode, but the android just kept staring at him.

“What?” he breathed, obviously shocked at the news.

“Like Pac-man? Eating the dots… but the dots are your code?”

Connor frowned at the poor analogy, but nodded anyway. Hank wasn’t great at this.

“You still overrode what I said.” Connor muttered then.

“I’m trying to save you, kid!”

“I didn’t ask to be saved!” He regretted the words the moment he had said them, but now they hung in the air, and Connor would see what they were doing to Hank.

“Fine.” Hank hissed as he got up. “I tried to help you. Because I actually give a fuck about you. But if you’re too stubborn to see that, maybe you really don’t want help. Fuck you.”

With that, the lieutenant stomped down the hall and threw his bedroom door shut, leaving Connor to question what he was doing. He was terrified of the news Hank had just given him. He didn’t want that to be true, didn’t want to think about it.

How was he supposed to live like this? Knowing something was tearing his code apart bit by bit. There would be nothing left of it eventually.

That was terrifying in itself.

His eyes were burning. He had torn into Hank out of defense, out of fear. Of trying to protect himself from the horrible truth.

Now they knew what was wrong with him. But was that really better? How could that be removed? Was there a way to remove it?

He didn’t notice the tears until they fell, and then he couldn’t stop them. They just kept coming, threatening to drown everything. He wanted this to stop. He wanted it to go away and everything be normal again.

He had enough of it now.

Why was this happening to him of all people? What had he ever done to humans? All he had tried was to be perfect, to do a good job, and he had been thrown aside, ignored, attacked and yelled at, simply for existing.

And now… he didn’t need Hank to tell him what the consequences of this issue was. Take enough of his coding away, and he would cease to function.

He wasn’t feeling it yet, but who knew how long until something important was erased?

But would Hank want to have him around at all for this?

He looked at Sumo for a long moment. The dog looked back at him but only huffed and yawned before he closed his eyes again. Clearly he wasn’t interested in the attention and preferred to nap right now. Connor could almost understand it. He was tired too. He wanted to sleep, wanted to forget everything.

But that wouldn’t happen. He knew he would wake up either to his own wild thoughts or to Hank getting mad at him again for not doing anything about it.

Had it been an unjustified reaction to be against the fact that Kamski now had his code? He understood why Hank had done it, but he was also sure that Kamski had lulled Hank into so many technical terms that Hank just agreed because it sounded like it made sense.

Maybe a change of air wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

And when he attempted to call North, the call connected within milliseconds. It startled him. He hadn’t expected it to work because the last time he attempted to call anyone; the connection couldn’t be established.

“Connor?” North’s voice sounded surprised and concerned at the same time. “Is everything okay?”

He thought for a moment about what he was supposed to tell her. What had he even planned to do?

“…I,” he began, voice trailing off. He didn’t know what to say. “…I fought with Hank.” because that was the truth. He had started that fight. Not Hank.

“What about?” North almost sounded amused.

He started to explain it to her, fought against his burning eyes. Why did the tears come now? Why couldn’t he just explain everything without being interrupted by emotions? It was clearly his fault, but he didn’t want to hear that. He wanted someone to agree with him. Someone who understood his point.

And that someone was North.

“You couldn’t exactly make that choice by yourself…” North sighed. “Look, Your Human was…  _ is _ worried about you. I’m worried about you too. What happened at your place was not normal.”

Anger settled into his chest. Was North going to lecture him too? Why couldn’t she just agree with him?

“North-“

“Look,” she sighed. “Go crash at my place tonight, but if anything happens, I’m gonna drag your ass to Kamski personally. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“I know where he lives.”

That made him flinch. “How-“

“Later. I’m waiting.”

He sighed, packed a change of clothes for work in the morning, and made his way over to North.

The woman let him in before he even had a chance to ring the doorbell. Her eyes were worried, looking at him as if he could break apart the second she touched him.

Did he really look that bad?

“North…” he sighed as he settled the backpack onto the floor in her small apartment. She had arranged it quite comfortably, with a big couch, carpet, a coffee table. And in the back of the room was a curious but frightened looking puppy.

Instantly his eyes were drawn to the animal.

North shook her head as she closed the door and sat on the couch. “Her name is Ivy. Chloe got her for me after I joked that I needed a guard dog.

“You know Chloe?” Connor asked as he crouched down in front of the puppy to have her sniff his hands. The small bundle of fur bounded up to him and jumped, slobbered all over him and got his shirt dirty.

North was about to complain, but Connor shook his head. “It’s fine.”

“Ugh! …You’re gonna spoil her before she has any manners.” She threw up her hands in mock frustration.

“So, you know Chloe?” Connor insisted.

North snarled. “Who doesn’t know Chloe?”

“But she gave you a dog. You clearly know her on a more personal level.”

North rolled her eyes and laid on her stomach on the couch to see him and the puppy better. “We’ve been friends for a while. Kamski is actually not that bad-“

He looked at her so abruptly, she jumped. “He wanted me to shoot Chloe first time I met her!”

“Yeah, she told me all about that. And how she slapped him afterwards.”

A small chuckle escaped him then. “He deserves nothing else.”

North shook her head. “He fixed an error in my software. And he removed parts of my chassis that I didn’t want to have anymore.”

“You let him do that?”

She hummed as if thinking about the answer. “He didn’t ask me, if you mean that. Chloe suggested that he can do that, and I asked him a bit later…. That was not easy! Okay?!”

“…It must’ve been difficult.”

North shrugged. “It’s better now. Feels less vulnerable. And that is exactly why you need to get your things looked at. Maybe he doesn’t have a solution, but it doesn’t hurt to try.”

Connor sighed and stood, settled on the empty spot of the couch next to her feet. She had a point. “Were you ever …. _ hurt _ by technicians?”

She lifted an eyebrow as she half turned to face him. “…Not that I know of. You forget that I got reset pretty often, so maybe there’s something that I can’t remember. But I don’t think so.”

He gave her a half smile and nodded.

“You know that androids… new models… they need to pass tests that serve their function, right?”

“Yeah, what about it?” She grabbed a couch pillow and sat up with her legs crossed onto the cushion.

“My model is no exception of course. The difference between your model and mine, is that you only had this body. Ever.” He started to explain. “My memories have been transferred from version 1 to this one. Version 54.”

North leaned in; eyes wide. “…They didn’t reset you?”

“If they tried, that didn’t work. Those tests are buried deep, but I can find the data when I look for that.”

“And you looked?”

“…I got curious.”

She slapped him upside the head with the pillow. “You’re an idiot! That’s what you are! Why would you do that?”

He flinched, as if expecting a second hit, but she retreated. “What did they do to you?”

“A lot?”

Her eyes wandered from his face down his body. “Did they-“

He shook his head at her implication. “I don’t have the parts for that-“

She scoffed. “As if  _ that _ stops a human!”

He sighed. “The testing involved other things. How the RK800 performed in different weather conditions and similar things.”

She nodded, still looking confused. “And that weird error… is eating you alive?”

His eyes widened. “…I… wouldn’t word it like that.”

“But it’s the truth, isn’t it?”

He paused. She was right. Maybe it wasn’t eating in the general sense, but it took pieces of his code away, broke it apart. It hadn’t yet reached his mind. But it had definitely reached his body.

“Connor,” North muttered. “If I know anything about you, it’s that you’re a fucking pain in the ass. You don’t give up. So why now? Just because it scares you?”

He stayed silent, not sure what to say to that.

“You jumped off of Jericho with us. Even though you’re scared of heights. You didn’t even stop.”

“That was different- How do you even know that? I never told anyone.”

Her laugh echoed around the room. “I don’t need to be a detective model to figure that out.”

He bit his lip and turned away from her. “It’s that obvious?”

“My model was made to read people’s body language. And like it or not, you’re an open book. Until you get mad, then you’re like a stone wall.”

He smiled at her. “I didn’t know.”

She shrugged and got up. “My energy levels are getting low, I’m gonna go to sleep.” She announced as she headed for the door that Connor assumed was hiding the bedroom. “You should get some rest too.”

“I’m fine.” He sighed.

She shook her head. “You know what I mean.”

He smiled back at her. “Thank you.”

With a snarl she stepped into the room and closed the door behind herself. “If Ivy needs to go, wake me up!” She yelled from behind the door.


	7. Chapter 7

What woke her up three hours later, was not the dog. It was a crash from the living room. Was she really getting robbed three days into living here? Why would a robber go for a floor that high up? Because she was an android?

The dog was barking now.

She scrambled out of her bed and carefully made her way to the door. She didn’t have weapons here.

That was dumb.

But Connor was here. And Ivy was still barking. Connor was police. There was no way he would have let anyone just break in.

North carefully put her hand on the door handle and opened the door. The living room still had all the lights on, but she immediately wished it didn’t.

The amount of thirium she saw on the floor was unsettling. Connor was in the middle of it all, on all fours, joined by Ivy who was barking at him as if that would do something. His left shoulder was hanging down in an unusual angle, too.

“Connor…?” her voice came out wrong, emotions overwhelming her.

This was worse than last time, wasn’t it? This wasn’t supposed to happen. As she crouched down in front of him he tensed, and she anticipated more thirium to flow out of him, but it didn’t. Instead he only listed forward, his head softly making contact with her chest. It unsettled her for a moment, but she couldn’t dwell on that. He was icy cold. That was unusual. Any sort of malfunction on that level would cause overheating.

“Connor!” She hissed at him then, grabbed his shoulders and shook him slightly.

He gave no reaction.

“Fuck this!” she yelled into the living room, glaring at the android in her arms as she rummaged through her contact list for Chloe.

What else was she supposed to do? And for what Connor had told her, Chloe was aware of what was going on.

Chloe picked up immediately. Despite the hour. Kamski had that habit of staying awake most of the night, and Chloe rarely left him alone during those times. Something about needing emotional support. North had never pried into that.

“North? You’re calling at an unusual hour, do you need assistance?”

North couldn’t keep the smile away. Chloe was amazing with such simple things. “It’s… Connor.”

As if to underline her words, the android made a sound so close to a whimper that she flinched. Had he heard his name? His LED was pulsing red rapidly. And Thirium kept dripping from his lips, now staining her grey sweatpants.

“Why is he with you-?... No. Don’t answer that, what is happening?”

North groaned in frustration. “I don’t know! There’s thirium everywhere and he’s not responding to anything I say.”

“I’ll order a cab to your location, bring him here immediately.”

North quickly gave her an affirmative before she tried to pull Connor to his feet. He was so out of it that he didn’t even seem to register her efforts and with a frustrated howl she pulled him off the ground and over her shoulder. She could feel his hammering thirium pump like this. It was like last time, and yet it seemed so much worse. So much more urgent.

Fuck what her neighbors would think. This was more important than some judgmental fucks. She only briefly checked if her dog had enough water and then left the apartment.

As Chloe had said, the cab was already waiting for them when North left the building. If Chloe was one thing, it was efficient. She never wasted unnecessary time.

North briefly wondered if that was because of what her function used to be, then she dragged Connor into the cab. Maybe it was luck that there was still a light rain, and the thirium stains on the pavement were already being washed away, but this really wasn’t her concern.

Should these assholes of humans think whatever they wanted.

The cab had just started when Connor suddenly doubled over and left a sizable stain of thirium on the carpeted floor of the cab. She held him so he wouldn’t fall into it, but all she wanted was for it to stop.

“Connor, what the fuck is going on?” She didn’t expect an answer, and jumped when he actually looked up at her.

“Where…”

“We’re in a cab.”

“To…?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but he went limp again and nearly toppled off the seat. North snarled as she dragged his legs onto the backseat and guided his head into her lap. This was annoying and terrifying. The amount of thirium he had lost couldn’t be small, but he was still so cold. Too little thirium would slow down all biocomponents, and in turn set them into overdrive to keep the system functioning. It would end in overheating.

She had seen this in many androids in Jericho. Many had succumbed to it. But this she had never witnessed.

Absentmindedly she stroked her hands through his hair, made a mental note to ask him how in the world he was able to make it so soft.

Maybe it was because he was a newer model. Maybe his whole system had been overhauled. It was no secret that he looked handsome. But she was made to respond to the attractiveness of humans, even when they weren’t.

Still, she was sure she had a pretty good grasp on how people looked, and Connor was definitely on a higher level. The AP700 was almost as pretty.

Noticing her train of thought she snarled at herself again and stared out the window. As they pulled into the drive to Kamski’s house, and the building became visible in the darkness, she noticed the man himself and Chloe standing there, waiting. Anticipating.

Chloe didn’t wait for the cab to stop before she was running to them. The doors were opened the second it came to a full stop and she was already dragging Connor out by the time Kamski had joined her.

“Chill!” North hissed at her when Connor almost slipped from her grasp. “You’re gonna drop him!”

Her friend grimaced and made a visible effort to take her time, but it was clear that she wanted to get Connor inside as fast as possible.

Something about it scared North more than the thirium still dripping from his lips.

If nothing else, Connor was important to Jericho. It was because of him that they managed to succeed. rA9 knew where they would be if Connor had not managed to free all these androids.

But why was this happening to him?

As they brought Connor down to Kamski’s lab and connected him to various cables and even more diagnostic screens, Kamski paced the area.

He didn’t look like he usually did. North had never seen him like this, he almost looked agitated. Angry even. But why?

“What is going on?” She asked when Kamski finally got a solid grasp on Connor’s thirium levels and instructed Chloe to set up an external thirium supply.

“Too much at once. He’s losing too much thirium.”

“But why?”

Kamski shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Then find it out!” North yelled at the human, who only sighed in response.

“I know this situation is far from ideal, but getting mad over it won’t change it. I am going to find out why this happens but you have to leave for that.”

“But-“ North protested and Chloe gently took her arm and guided her to the door. “Please wait outside. I will keep you updated through wireless communication.”

With that the white sliding door shut before her eyes and locked. She glared at it for several seconds before she wandered to the opposite wall and sat down on the ground. She didn’t like how much thirium was still sticking to her. Even when the color was fading, the residue was still around. And it reminded her of substances she never wanted anywhere near her ever again.

A short burst of communication from Chloe made her flinch ‘He isn’t accepting new thirium.’

“Fuck.” North cursed into the empty hallway. Chloe had immediately closed the communication again, most likely to keep her concentration on the issue.

Minutes passed without any news, then Chloe contacted her again ‘Elijah found a code that could be responsible.’

And the connection was closed again before North could even think about something to reply to that.

She was stuck staring at the wall for the next 40 minutes until Chloe slowly opened the door. Her friend looked as if she had seen a ghost. Which was quite a rare sight on an android, but North knew it well.

“What happened?” she asked as she got back to her feet.

Chloe grimaced, worried her lip and stepped aside to let her into the room. Connor was still lying on the table, his chest panels now all open, his shirt gone from sight.

His yellow LED didn’t really promise anything good. At least it wasn’t red anymore.

“We’re not entirely sure about that.” Kamski admitted. “Do you know what a kill switch is?”

North rolled her eyes. “Of course.”

Kamski nodded, more to his multiple computer screens than to her or Chloe. “The code in place triggers a sequence of system errors. There’s nothing physically wrong with his system, but this piece of code makes it think there is. It’s a precaution. Literally labelled  _ kill switch _ .”

“Not very creative.” North scoffed.

“But very effective.” Chloe muttered. “It activates in short bursts, making his system do things it would only do under severe circumstances. That’s why no one could find anything.”

“But you found it. So, delete that code and-“

Kamski shook his head. “The system also released a substance with the last episode… and it clogged thirium veins.”

North held her breath for a moment. That was not what she expected to hear. And judging by Chloe’s and Kamski’s faces, these news were bleak.

“How…” She closed her eyes against the onslaught of emotion. It wasn’t the right time to get mad. She needed to hear why this was so bad. And then she could get mad.

“To fix this, we need to either clean his entire system and refill it, or exchange main thirium lines one by one and have the rest cleaned up through filters. The latter is less risky, but more time consuming.”

“Shit.”

Chloe nodded in agreement.

“I can do either,” Kamski explained, “but his system is taxed and the body might not last through either of those scenarios. And as you know, the RK800 is a quite rare model.”

North nodded. She knew that. Even Connor had never actually encountered others of his model. Except for once. Whereas North had no trouble at all accidentally running into a WR400. She didn’t even have to actively seek them out to find them.

“Shouldn’t… Connor make this decision?”

Kamski sighed. “Should. But if he exits stasis at this point, his panic will cause more trouble than we can deal with.”

“Because of this lab?”

Chloe took a step closer to North. “Connor was tested and experimented on-“

“I know that!” North snapped, “But-“

“It’s safer.” Chloe assured her and turned back to Kamski. “I can inform Lieutenant Anderson of the situation-“

“I’ll do it.” North offered instead. “The human… seems weirdly attached to him. But not in a creepy way.”

Kamski gave her a meek smile. “What do you reckon the man would do?”

“The less risky approach.” North scoffed. “Connor is important to him.”

The human gave her a court nod and watched as she left the room. Chloe gave him a sour look once the door was closed again.

“Why didn’t you tell her that we don’t actually know where it’s coming from?” She pointed to Connor’s thirium pump steadily beating in his chest.

“I’ll explain it when the lieutenant is here. You know the man isn’t very tech savvy.”

Chloe nodded and eyed Connor over. It was strange to see him like this. Sure, she had seen a lot of androids exposed like this. Be it her sisters in a state of maintenance, or others like Markus who would occasionally come here before everything went to hell.

She supposed things were better for androids now, but what good did it do when Cyberlife still held onto blueprints of rarer models, and refused to give them up.

“Chloe, are you listening?”

She flinched. “Pardon?”

Kamski gave her a reassuring smile. “I said we should start switching out the main-thirium lines.”

“Of course.” She nodded as she hurried into a separate room and returned with white cardboard boxes filled with clear tubing. “Are these the right size?”

Kamski turned and glanced at the box. “Yes. Thank you. Please prepare everything.”

“Of course, Elijah.” He watched her hurry off again, gathering tools and equipment, not quite realizing that Kamski’s expression was turning grim as he studied the numbers on his computer screens.

“I’m going to kill this fucking company from the inside.” He hissed at the screen as Chloe wheeled a side table closer to arrange all the tools.

“Ready.”

Kamski turned around on his chair, gave the screen one last glance and then locked eyes with Chloe. “You remember how to do this?”

She gave him a confident smile. “Of course, Elijah.”

“Let’s start then.”

Chloe flinched when Kamski fired a tool across the room an hour later with a colorful curse. “I can’t believe the bastards did that!”

“Elijah-“

“Don’t.” He warned her. “We’ll switch the rest of the lines; I’ll deal with this afterwards.”

Chloe looked at the work they had already done, and then eyed Connor’s thirium pump a little closer. If she scanned it, she could see it, but only then. The human had only seen it by coincidence.

A tiny orange tube, hidden under a main valve, distributing the dangerous substance steadily. It was the supposed kill switch of every android that would inject a substance into an android’s core processor and immediately deactivate them. It was the last resort.

Meant to kill them immediately.

But they had placed Connor’s  _ there _ . And they chose to make the substance trickle out in small instances, killing him slowly. Over a great amount of time. Kamski was angered about that. Understandably so.

This system was meant to sit at a completely different point in an android’s body, and most recent models didn’t have this anymore at all. It was now a command that would put them into deactivation, but not permanent shut down.

To put it inside the thirium pump was inhumane and unnecessarily cruel.

“…Should have never let them take over  _ my _ company.” Kamski hissed as he helplessly watched the system do what it was meant to do.

Slowly and precariously. To ruin Connor’s thirium lines yet again. He couldn’t access the device, couldn’t possibly tell how much of the substance was still left in it, but a horrifying thought entered his mind. Connor’s thirium conductivity fluctuated in instances, it was a measurable time, not random at all, and it made the man suspect that the device was automatically refueling itself.

And he couldn’t remove it from this position. He couldn’t take it out without stopping the thirium pump, taxing Connor’s systems even more and risking complete shutdown. The system could also release all of the substance and kill him immediately.

At this point, Kamski believed anything was possible with this company.

It wasn’t worth that risk.

He needed to wait for the Lieutenant to arrive, and have him make a decision.

He already knew the man’s answer, but he wanted to give him a sense of power over it. Wanted to make him think he had a say in this. When in truth, the decision was already made.

The system had to be removed one way or another.

The easiest would be to just replace the thirium pump, but Chloe had quickly informed him that it of course was not a standard model. They had to reverse engineer it from an existing thirium pump.

Chloe gently placed a hand on his shoulder as he buried his head in his hands and shook his head. “I don’t believe this.”

“There is no use blaming yourself for what strangers did to your idea, Elijah.” Chloe tried to encourage him. “We can only try to reclaim it.”

He scoffed and looked at her. “And we fucking will. With blazing guns. From the inside.”

She flashed him a shit eating grin as she grabbed his coffee cup from his desk. “Coffee?”

“Extra strong.”

“Of course!”


	8. Chapter 8

Hank didn’t like any of the things North had told him after she practically dragged him into an auto cab and tried to explain the situation in simple terms. She had just started the third time, getting mindlessly frustrated at the  _ incompetence _ of this human being, when the cab pulled up to Kamski’s home.

This time they weren’t expected.

Hank felt a strange sense of dread, only worsened when North opened the unlocked front door. It took him a moment to realize that she had the access code for it and it would only open for her.

“So, what the fuck is actually going on now?” Hank ranted as she led him through the building.

“I have explained it to you four times now!” She snapped back.

“But it still doesn’t make sense!”

“His thirium was contaminated and they had to replace all tubing. How is that hard to understand?!”

Hank threw his hands up in frustration when Chloe stepped out of the lab, into the hallway they had just entered.

“Lieutenant.”

Hank nodded at her, a slight frown still on his face. “…Cassy-“

“Chloe!” North hissed at him.

“Chloe. Sorry.”

The blonde android didn’t seem to mind the mix up and gestured for them to follow.

Hank felt a weight lifted from his shoulders when he saw Connor sitting up at the table, legs dangling down from it, alert and aware eyes immediately focusing on Hank.

He still looked miffed.

Hank decided not to say anything.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.” Kamski greeted him.

Hank only grunted in response. “Hrm.”

“I apologize for the rather messy approach to things; however, time is crucial.”

“Yeah, yeah, get to the point, what is happening?”

Chloe stepped up to them, close to Connor who eyed her like a hawk. “We replaced-“

“Yeah,  _ Compass _ over there already tried to explain-“

North snarled, but stayed quiet.

Maybe Connor knew that Hank hadn’t understood what North had been trying to explain, because he spoke up. His voice was thin, hoarse even. As if he had screamed for too long.

“What happened could be described as being similar to blood poisoning in humans.” Connor explained.

North perked up as if she finally understood why Hank didn’t get what she was telling him.

“That issue is taken care of, but,” Connor continued, but looked at Kamski as if the man could explain it better.

The former CEO of Cyberlife took the opportunity to talk, like a child offered candy. “I am sure you are aware that androids possess a deactivation code.”

Hank nodded. “Doesn’t work in deviants.”

“The new version doesn’t. But there is an older system, that would permanently shut down an android at the press of a button.” Kamski explained. “The RK800 should not have this system, but the model does. Usually it’s designed to kill an android’s processor instantly.”

He snapped his fingers to emphasize his words. “Hence why it’s called a kill switch.”

“…So, Connor has one?”

Kamski nodded. “Technically you could remove it. If it was in the position it should be at.”

“But it’s not.” Hank supplied.

“Correct.” Connor answered, instead of Kamski. “Cyberlife built a modified version of it into my thirium pump.”

Hank’s face lost all color in an instant. “…Why-“

Connor shrugged and Kamski grimaced. “I don’t know. The issue is that we can’t remove it. Which, if it worked as intended, wouldn’t be a problem because that kill switch is physical and needs to be pushed to be activated. But it’s not working like that.”

Hank frowned, looked between Connor and Kamski.

“The substance that is supposed to kill the android instantly is instead released slowly, gunking up his system and making it fail more and more over a long amount of time.” Kamski continued. “That’s why he has these episodes.”

Hank’s shoulders slumped as he processed the information.

“It’s trying to kill my processor.  _ Me _ .” Connor muttered. “And… it can’t be removed.”

Hank ran both of his hands across his face, unsure what to say about that. “…there’s gotta be something-“

Kamski nodded. “Chloe and I are reverse engineering Connor’s thirium pump, as it is a custom model. It’s going to take at least two days to get all information and build it. In the meantime, we have to put him in low power-mode to minimize the risk of another episode.”

Hank nodded. This all sounded plausible. Not very good, but it wasn’t the end of the world. However, Connor didn’t really seem to give a damn about what was happening to him. He hadn’t really been, now that Hank thought about it. There was never an outburst, or frustration over what was going on. Was this how the kid coped with it?

“He has to stay here, for the time being. Chloe will attach alarms to him that will alert me if his system reaches critical parameters, or if he has another episode. He can’t leave.”

The lieutenant didn’t like this, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it. “It’s just two days, huh? We can do that.” He tried to smile, but Connor’s face looked kind of hollow.

Empty even.

He didn’t say a word when Chloe attached cables to him that made him look like something from a bad science fiction flick.

“I will prepare the guest room for you.” The woman then said and North was tasked with bringing them there.

Connor was dragging the massive amount of cable behind him, without care. Hank was mindful not to step on any of them, but his friend mindlessly followed North, not a care in the world about the cables behind him. Only when Hank picked them up, he turned and glared at the older man.

“What are you doing?!” Connor snapped.

It was the first bit of emotion he was seeing in the kid since he had arrived at Kamski’s place.

Hank sighed. “Keeping you from ripping them out.”

“What does it matter?” And Connor was back to the resigned self he had been the whole time.

“You may not care, but I do, so deal with it because I’m not leaving you alone.”

Connor scoffed. “I’m damaged, get a new android.”

“Fuck you.” Hank growled at him. “If you’re trying to push me away, try harder. Cause it’s not working.”

Connor chose to stay silent, getting a headshake from North as he entered the guest room. “You know, Connor, we’re busting our asses to help you. And you’re-“

Hank held up a hand to silence her. “I’ll talk to him. It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay!” The woman protested. “Who does he think he is-“

“A prototype that was built to break apart! I wasn’t made to be sturdy and manhandled like a fucking WR400!”

North shot forward before Hank could stop her and had punched Connor in the face “Markus should have killed you when he had the chance, you fucking bastard!”

Connor took the hit without retaliating, landed on the bed, tipped over without much of a reaction. North fumed, stormed past Hank with curses and insults dripping in hatred.

“Geez… you pissed her off good.”

Connor only scoffed, turned to his side and curled up. “Why are you here?”

“Because I care about you, kid.”

“I’m just a piece of useless plastic.”

Hank sat down on the bed with him and shook his head. He could see where North got his face. The skin overlay was slow to recover. “Connor, stop that. You’re not at your best at the moment, but that doesn’t make you useless.”

The android scoffed. “This has been going on for way too long.”

“So what? Humans get sick all the time.”

“Androids don’t.”

“And yet, here we are.” Hank shrugged. “Apologize to her when she’s calmed down.”

Connor grunted into the sheets and sighed deeply. “Why do you care about me, Hank?”

Hank shrugged again. “Don’t know. Maybe I got attached to this hunk of plastic constantly berating me over my eating habits and how I should look out for myself, don’t overwork myself and stop giving Sumo food scraps?”

Connor stayed silent, but Hank noticed a shudder running through the android.

“Take your own advice, kid.”

“You could just get a new android.”

Hank glared at his friend’s back. “Yeah, I could. But it wouldn’t be  _ you _ .”

“How would you know...? You almost shot me in the tower.”

“But I didn’t.”

Connor sighed, grasped the edge of a pillow and pulled it into his chest. “I… don’t know why I got so mad…”

Hank placed a hand on his shoulder, hoped it would reassure him, but it riled Hank up, Connor was trembling badly.

“That happens. Look at the situation you’re in. Some humans would react exactly the same way in such a situation.”

Connor lifted his head and frowned at the human. “Do you know any?”

Hank smiled. “Gavin.”

Connor deadpanned at him and slumped back into the mattress. “I don’t want to be compared to him.”

“You wanted an example; I gave you one.” Hank chuckled. “Get some rest, huh? You’re pretty wrought up.”

Connor mumbled something in the pillow as Hank got up. “Hm?”

There was a short pause because Connor repeated quietly, “…I think I’m scared, Hank…”

Hank bit back a remark and settled back down. “No shame in that, kid.”

“I shouldn’t-“

“None of that. I’ll stay with you if you want.”

Connor didn’t reply, but Hank saw his small nod.

Carefully he tugged the blanket out from under the android and pulled it over his shoulders. “Get some rest.” He repeated. “I’ll stay here.”


	9. Chapter 9

Hank knew he had fallen asleep at some point, and waking up when it was still dark outside was strange to him, almost. He needed a moment to locate a clock, then squeezed his eyes shut with a yawn.

No normal human being should be up at five in the morning. But being awake meant that he could keep an eye on his friend, who hadn’t moved a hair from the position he had been in when Hank must have fallen asleep.

He knew that wasn’t strange for androids, but that wasn’t a Connor-thing. The android would move when asleep, in stasis, whatever he called it.

His LED was still stuck on yellow, which seemed to be a good sign. A side effect of Low power-mode.

If he had understood Chloe correctly.

As he shifted to get out of the weird position he had slept in, Connor slowly sat up, as if ripped out of a deep sleep. But with him the room’s lights flickered on.

Technology. Hank almost scoffed.

“Hank...?” Connor’s voice sounded tired.

“I’m here.” Hank replied, tried to sound reassuring, despite how weird all of this still felt to him. “Nature’s calling.” He sighed as he finally stood and crawled out the bed. He didn’t remember it being this big when he had walked in here the previous night.

But that could have been because he was focused on other things.

When he finally had his feet on the heated tiles of the floor, he almost tripped over the barrage of cables on the floor.

In a last-ditch effort to avoid stepping on them he jumped over them and stumbled into the wall. He was torn between laughing at his stupidity and apologizing to Connor for forgetting about them.

Connor had watched him trip, but his expression was unchanged. He only sank back into the pillow and curled more into the blanket.

“Sorry.”

The android shrugged.

“Hey,” Hank sighed. “I think I like it more when you’re berating me over my habits.”

Connor didn’t reply, only buried himself deeper into the pillow.

“I’m gonna use the bathroom, find some food and then I’m coming back, okay?”

Another shrug from the android. Hank forced his anger down. Connor wasn’t doing that to piss him off.

But just as Hank turned to the door, it opened and Chloe carried a tray of what smelled gloriously like bacon and eggs.

“Connor told me you were awake, Lieutenant. He also told me what you preferred to eat in the morning.”

Hank blinked at her in surprise, looked back at Connor, then Chloe. Then at the food. No way in hell would Connor ever let him have this much greasy food at any time of day, if he had any say in it.

“What the-“

“Is it not to your liking?”

Hank shook his head, “No, no, it’s fine, thank you-“

Chloe gave him a small smile and set the tray down at a side table by the window. “When you’re done, just leave it here, I will collect it later.”

Hank still stared at her in surprise. “Okay-“

Chloe was gone as fast as she had appeared and Hank side eyed his friend suspiciously. Connor’s back was turned towards him, but even under the blanket, Hank could see that he was trembling.

“Connor?”

Connor only grunted in response.

“Kid, I know what you’re trying to do.” He walked back over to the bed and sat down next to his partner. “And I don’t like this.”

“Then don’t.”

“Don’t do that Connor. You’ve pulled me out of that fucking hole, and I’m not gonna let you fall into it.”

“You can’t.”

Hank sighed. “Kid, it’s okay if you’re angry or pissed or sad or scared or everything at once. There’s no shame in that. But don’t bottle it up.”

Connor slowly turned around, still half buried under the blanket, and taking the pillow with him. Hank felt a heavy weight settle back onto him when the dark eyes focused on him. Even before he deviated, Connor’s eyes had never looked so empty.

Without thinking,he reached out and placed his hand on Connor’s shoulder. “I can tell you’re scared. And that’s okay. Do you understand? It’s okay to be scared, this shit’s terrifying. I don’t know how it feels for you, but this really intimidates me-“

Connor’s eyes shifted away from Hank and his voice almost seemed to crack when he responded, “I’m sorry, Hank… I didn’t mean to pull you into this…”

Hank shook his head. “Shut up. We’re partners, hell, we’re friends. You sleep on my couch. I’m not gonna leave you hanging because it’s a little scary. What kind of father would I be if I did that?”

Connor frowned, then looked up at him again. “What?”

“What, what?”

“You said-“

Hank grimaced when he realized his words. There was no taking them back now and he snarled in frustration. “…Just to make this clear because I can see your fucking gears turning from here,” Hank began, voice rough, gaze boring through the android.

“You are  _ not _ a replacement. You look nothing like him, you act nothing like him. Got that?”

Connor’s brows furrowed in confusion.

“What… why would you… we’re not even-“

“Related? Same Species?” Hank scoffed. “People adopt dogs all the time-“

There was a glint of something in Connor’s eyes before his confused expression turned into something snarky. “…I see how it is, Hank.” The tiniest hint of a smirk pulled at his lips.

“Oh, fuck you, you know what I mean!”

Connor’s smile tugged at him. He hadn’t even realized how long it had been since he had seen it. “Tell you what, when this is over with, I’m adopting you.”

Connor laughed quietly. “That’s impossible, Hank, the bill hasn’t passed yet.”

“And if I have to forge the papers myself, by the end of this year, you’ll be Connor Anderson. Only if you want to of course.”

“Do I have to start calling you  _ dad _ ?”

Hank froze, lips turning into a thin line. “…Maybe… if you warn me before you say it.”

Connor’s smile stayed. “I understand if it brings up memories you wouldn’t like to think about.”

Hank sighed, stood and gave Connor’s shoulders a pat. “We’ll work this out. Kamski said we have three days, huh. How about I go get Sumo and let him play in the mud before I bring him inside?”

“He’d absolutely love that.”

“Who, Kamski?”

“Sumo!” Connor laughed.

Hank grinned, then finally located the bathroom. “I’ll eat and then I go get Sumo, okay?”

Connor’s expression changed as quickly as it had lit up. “…Please leave your phone on.”

Hank nodded. “Message me with all the bullshit you want to talk about.”

“Don’t text and drive.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “I know!”


	10. Chapter 10

Hank wasn’t too bothered when Connor stopped sending voice messages to his phone. The android had mentioned he was going to explore the building a bit, since he couldn’t leave. Chloe was accompanying him, showing him the  _ good spots _ . It almost sounded as if he had made a friend.

It was a nice change of pace, from all the fear that was building up in Hank. They both knew that things were far from easy or fun or almost over. But there was a small spark of hope, that when Kamski had finished the new thirium pump, they would finally be able to return to their lives as they were before all of this.

Oh, and adoption papers. Hank knew where to get those, even when it was just a nice gesture. Maybe he couldn’t officially adopt Connor, but it was the thought that counted.

What was he getting himself into? Adopting a toddler with the intellect of a super computer in the shape of a thirty-year-old man?

As much as it was hurting him, it was time to move on. Cole’s things would never be used again, they would just collect dust and rot away if he kept them in the garage for much longer. It was time to donate what he could to the orphanages. Keep one or two things.

He wouldn’t forget Cole. Ever. But his things were cluttering up space Cole would never be using again anyway.

Maybe he could start small. The toys could go first.

As he was thinking about what to do with Cole’s things, he realized he had already arrived at his house. It was a bit of a riddle to him how he managed to drive here without paying attention, and how many red lights he had ran, but the lack of a police trail behind him suggested that he had been lucky.

Sumo was bounding up to him with a bark and a curious glance outside as if he was expecting Connor to show up too. But then the massive dog just pushed past him to do his business.

“Sorry…” Hank apologized to the dog. “Been gone for too long huh?”

He left the door open as he walked inside, knew Sumo would dart for his empty food bowl next. He filled it up and headed into the bedroom. Connor would probably appreciate a change in clothing. He had been running around in jeans and dress shirt the whole time and Hank was getting uncomfortable just thinking about that.

As he packed two t-shirts, hoodie and sweatpants into a paper bag, he heard Sumo walk back into the house and make a mess with his food. Shaking his head at the dog, he opened the lower drawer and grabbed a few pairs of fuzzy socks.

He still had no idea why Connor loved them so much, ans especially not why they had to be the brightest colors, but who was he to talk, with his closet full of weirdly patterned shirts?

Sumo had just finished his food when Hank walked back into the living room. “We gonna go see Connor now?”

Sumo perked up at the name, sniffed the air as if that would help him find the android. He whined when he couldn’t find his friend.

“No, we’re  _ going _ to see him. You gotta have to come with me, bud.”

When he grabbed Sumo’s leash, the dog was already at his side, obviously hoping for a walk. The disappointment when Hank tried to get him into the backseat was almost funny to see on a dog.

“Come on, I’m getting you to him, but you need to get your ass in there.”

After a few minutes he managed to get the dog into the car and shut the door with a heavy sigh. He was fully planning to let Sumo out in the park and have him roll in the mud, just to piss Kamski off, when his phone rang with an unknown number.

Frowning, he picked it up, not quite sure who to expect on the other end.

He did not expect Chloe to call him.

“Lieutenant?” Something in her voice made his heart jump into his throat.

Had he taken the situation too lightly? Too much like an inconvenience than a fucking tragedy unfolding? Had he angered the god he didn’t believe in into taking the one being away from him that managed to make him see the good things in life again?

“… Chloe?”

“…I’m sorry,“ The woman began, “Connor’s system has failed, we’re currently trying to keep him stable, but…”

It was all Hank needed to hear. He knew that tone, he knew those words.

_ We’re sorry but there was nothing we could do.  _ No. He never wanted to heat that again, especially not from an android.

Hank squeezed his eyes shut. He should have never left! Screw the dog, Ben would have loved to take care of him! Why did he ever leave?! He gripped the steering wheel, clenched his fists against the fury building up inside of him.

He cursed the universe, his life, the dog, Chloe, everyone. And especially Kamski.

“We don’t know if we can keep him stable until the new thirium pump is finished. I understand that humans would like to be with their loved ones in such dire times and- “

Hank slammed the car door shut with such force, he feared for a moment that it would fall off. What the fuck did that even matter now?

He turned the keys, barely even looked for oncoming traffic as he raced into the streets. Fuck what laws he was breaking, fuck everything.

He needed to get there. Fast.

Fuck all that shit about donating Cole’s things, about moving on. Fuck everything. Why couldn’t the fucking universe be nice to him, one fucking time?!

“FUCK!” He screamed into the phone, undoubtedly startling Chloe, but the woman didn’t hang up.

“Please drive carefully. Elijah is trying to find a solution. We will not let him go down without a fight.”

“Fuck it! Fuck everything! You don’t even care about him! You don’t fucking care!” Hank knew he was ranting, but he couldn’t do anything else. He needed that anger out, lest he’d punch Kamski in the face of he crossed paths with him again.

But what did that matter?

“You give no fucks that a little boy is there, dying and you’re just doing your fucking job, and it doesn’t fucking… it doesn’t fucking matter to you.” His voice broke at the words, and the tears spilled.

He hadn’t even realized they had formed before it was too late. He had screamed the words at her that he had screamed at the android who told him that they had done everything to save Cole, but they had failed.

It was like being stabbed in the heart. Like a crushing weight squeezing his insides.

“Lieutenant, please calm down.”

“Fuck you!” His voice refused to rise as his tears drowned their weight. Maybe it was a good thing that the streets were so empty in the morning, because he could barely see. But hell, if he stopped now he would never make it in time.

He needed to be there, and if it was just to see Connor’s metaphorical last breath, he would be there.

Nothing would stop him.


	11. Chapter 11

Hank didn’t bother to park in any sort of organized way when he stopped in front of Kamski’s house yet again. He didn’t have the mind to let Sumo out of the car either, the dog was completely forgotten.

Chloe was waiting for him, and if it was possible at all, she looked shaken.

North was there too, Hank had no idea where she had been, but now she was back.

No one spoke a word as Chloe hurried off, gesturing for Hank to follow her.

She was almost running. He didn’t mind. The faster they got there, the more time he could spend with the kid.

If any.

If it wasn’t too late yet.

His heart was pounding in his chest. This couldn’t fucking be the end.

The room they were in was different this time. It was sectioned off, with a view into the lab. And he could see Kamski and three other androids working on Connor. Two of them looked like Chloe. The other was this  _ abomination _ of an RK900, who had Connor’s face, but wasn’t him. Something about this model was different. He couldn’t put his finger on what.

Hank was panicking now. He wanted to get in there, wanted to be with the kid.

The amount of wires and cables and tubing coming in and out of Connor’s body almost made him sick. He hadn’t been gone for a full hour, how had Connor ended up like this, so fast?!

“I apologize.” Chloe muttered next to him. “We thought we could hold off on this, but there was no way Connor’s processors would have been able to keep his system running without us intervening.”

“…What… does that mean?” Hank almost didn’t dare to ask.

“He’s essentially on life support at the moment.”

Hank squeezed his eyes shut; they were still damp with previously shed tears. This just couldn’t be true. Which fucking higher being had he angered this badly to always be thrown into such situations? He just wanted to live peacefully and those around him to have a good life.

Sure, Connor had done things that weren’t the greatest, but he was a good guy. He didn’t deserve any of this. None of it.

“I understand you have been in a similar situation.” Chloe muttered next to him after a moment. “Connor has told me about it.”

Hank frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“When Connor broke down, he told me not to take it personally if you snapped at me, because you lost your son in a similar matter.”

Hank snarled. “The fucking bastard.”

He turned back to the window where he could watch Kamski. “And you can’t keep him in this state until you finished the new pump?”

“We are trying to do this, but his system is giving in, Lieutenant. We’re only postponing the inevitable.”

Hank nodded, hands curling into fists. He had expected that. Of course, the universe would shit on him again like that. Why the fuck had he ever expected things to look up ever again?

“I am in constant contact with my sisters, they will inform me immediately about any changes in his condition.” Chloe told him quietly.

“Why aren’t you in there with them?”

Chloe grimaced. “Someone had to let you in.”

Hank arched an eyebrow at her, but he wasn’t getting a better answer from her. Not that it really mattered.

He didn’t want to just watch Connor deteriorate, he wanted to do something about it.

But he was helpless. There was nothing he could do. Nothing to say, nothing to fix that he knew how to fix.

And then there was a shift in the mood. Hank could feel it, saw Chloe tense next to him, saw how she clenched her teeth, held her breath. “I apologize, I have to go-“

She was running into the lab before Hank had fully processed what was going on. And then he was left there, staring as Kamski yelled at his androids, pointing, giving orders. He couldn’t hear the words, but the gestures were enough. Something bad was happening.

And then there was panic. He could see it on Chloe’s face, on her sister’s, on Kamski.

Connor’s LED was flickering on and off, now. And Hank turned, leaned his back against the window and sank to the ground.

It was over.

He was going to lose this kid too.

It was numbing, the pain he felt was unreal, it was like the world just stopped being real, as if things around him were just born from a nightmare.

But at the same time, he knew it wasn’t a nightmare.

He knew it because last time it had felt the same.

He hit his head against the wall behind him with a curse as he squeezed his eyes shut. Could things get any worse now? He just wanted it to be over.

And then the door opened again and Chloe stepped out. Hank immediately got back to his feet, only to notice that the window he had been looking through before was now dark. He couldn’t see what was going on in there anymore.

“Elijah has found a solution.” Chloe told him. But she looked worn out, tired, pale. “It will take a few hours to finish. Connor will be fine afterwards.”

That sounded fishy.

“How?”

Chloe sighed. “Please follow me.”

Reluctantly, he followed her through the building into a room that essentially looked like an open kitchen with a living room attached to it. North was sitting on one of the bar stools that lined an island counter, Sumo and another dog at her feet.

Sumo trudged up to Hank with a curious whine, looking past Hank again, in search of Connor. Hank scratched the dog’s head for a moment before he settled down on the stool next to North. The woman had a glass with blue liquid in front of her, staring into it as if it held answers to the world’s greatest mysteries.

“So how do you save him?”

North gripped the glass tighter while Chloe sat on top of the counter. “We’re moving his data into another model,” she held up a hand as Hank tried to protest. “This has been done before, I am sure you’re aware of it.”

“But-“

“His body won’t be the same, but his mind is.” Chloe explained.

“…And you think he’ll be fine?” Hank scoffed.

“No.” North hissed then, voice dripping with acid. “He won’t be  _ fine _ .”

Hank wasn’t sure if she was addressing him or Chloe, but the gaze she shot her friend was dangerous. “You think he’ll be okay with this?”

Chloe shook her head. “No. But it was the only way to save him.”

“He’s gonna be angry.”

Chloe’s expression shifted; Hank could see tears filling her eyes. “I… I rather have him angry  _ than dead- _ “ her voice was drowned by tears, as they spilled over her cheeks.

Hank shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to believe this. Things couldn’t just be fine again out of nowhere.

Connor had been transferred into other models 3 times before. Hank knew that, remembered that. It had always taken several hours for him to come back, sometimes a full day. And there were no RK800 bodies left.

Why did Chloe think it was so easy?

Silence settled over them, only broken by Sumo’s occasional whines. He could sense the tense mood, knew there was something off. Hank wanted to run, wanted to forget. Stop caring about the kid and move on, it would have hurt less, but he couldn’t.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to, and if Connor recovered from this, he wouldn’t do that to him either.

And an hour later, one of Chloe’s sisters entered the kitchen with a strange expression on her face.

“Lieutenant?”

Hank jumped. He had seen her come in but he didn’t expect her to address him. “Connor has taken to the new body, we’re going to bring him out of stasis soon, we thought you might want to be with him when that is going to happen.”

Hank was already standing before she had finished.

Of course, he wanted to be there.

And he wanted to punch Kamski, and then Chloe, for all the horrifying emotions he had been forced to endure in the past few hours.

Chloe’s sister brought him back to the guest room they had been in the night before. Connor was already there. There was a screen attached to him, showing his system status, while Kamski sat in a chair with a tablet in his hand, typing things into the device.

Hank was confused. Connor looked like he had always looked. There was nothing new or strange about him. Had they really found another RK800 on such a short notice?

“Lieutenant Anderson.” Kamski greeted him. “Please sit, he should be coming around soon.”

“I don’t-…” Hank wasn’t even sure what he wanted to say. Understand it? Like it?

“I’ll explain.” Kamski put the tablet on the bed and leaned forward.

He looked tired, overworked. His hair was sticking out from his bun, dark circles under his eyes. Hank was sure the man had been wearing the same shirt since he had arrived the first time.

“I was able to move everything that makes Connor who he is into this body. This is an RK900. Things are slightly different for him, but the look is entirely the same.”

That made sense. The RK900 was a more common model. Mass produced. Where Kamski got the hands on one, he didn’t know, but at the moment he didn’t care.

“…He’s… okay now?”

Kamski nodded once. “Perfectly fine. Physically. I am not sure how this has affected him emotionally, but that isn’t my field of expertise anyway.”

Hank had questions. Many so, but when Connor flinched and brown eyes snapped open, he forgot all of them.

“Stay calm.” Kamski raised his voice slightly, making sure he was heard. “You are going to need to calibrate this system to use it effectively. I have made modifications to fit your processors, certain functions are disabled. Leave them off for now.”

Connor nodded.

Hank saw him swallow heavily; it was strange to see such a motion on an android. He looked like a human waking up from surgery. His eyes were wandering around the room, his LED shifted from yellow to red, then back to yellow. Then his breathing kicked in so suddenly, that Hank jumped.

It was almost a gasp before it settled on a normal rhythm.

He blinked a few times, turned his head, eyes widening when they settled on Hank.

“Hey,” Hank forced a smile. His emotions were running too wild to give him a real smile.

Something was off. Maybe it was the way Connor looked at him, or that weird scowl on his face.

“What…” Connor muttered, voice sounding strangely metallic. “Where-“

“You’re still in my house. Do you know who I am?”

Connor nodded, then slowly sorted out his limbs, moving fingers and feet and then he struggled to sit up. Hank moved to help him but Kamski stopped him.

“Let him calibrate it.”

Hank snarled, watched Connor struggling with growing discomfort.

“This… this system… it’s … why is it different?”

Kamski gave him a half smile. “We put you into a new body.”

“I… I know but… things are different-“

Kamski continued his weird smile. “You’ll figure it out.”

Then, Hank saw absolute horror spread on Connor’s face. “RK…900?” He sat up in alarm, shaking his head. “No!”

“Connor,” Kamski warned. “This was the only choice we had to save you.”

“But- What… you can’t do that!”

Kamski sighed. “I know this wasn’t the best choice, but we preserved the core memories of the model you’re residing in. No one died.”

That seemed to calm him a bit, but Hank didn’t try to understand what was going on. He didn’t care, really. All he knew was that Connor was fine, and seemingly without physical issues now. What did it matter that his model number was different now?

“I want you to recalibrate, and then take it easy today. Figure the new system out one by one, and then come to me to enable the systems I have disabled. Got that?” Kamski stood as he spoke and disconnected the device still plugged into Connor.

All in all, Hank found this to be rather anti climatic, thinking about how much stress he had lived through just hours before, and now Connor was sitting there, understandably terrified, but fine.

It was strange.

When Kamski left the room, Connor shifted to look at him.

“Hank-“ Connor’s eyes were wide, body trembling, LED flickering between yellow and red.

Hank shook his head and settled down on the edge of the bed. “Fuck him.” He scoffed.

Connor shifted closer to him, hands gripping into Hank’s shirt as he pulled himself closer to the lieutenant, not letting go until Hank’s arms moved around him.

“I’m sorry. I said horrible things-“ The android apologized.

Hank laughed. “You scared the shit out of me. And now it’s as if nothing happened. That’s gonna be a theme with you huh?”

“I hope this never happens again…”

“That makes two, son.”

“I’m… not the same-“

Hank shrugged. “Fuck that. I know it’s  _ you _ .”

“How…?”

“I just know.”

Connor pressed himself into the man again, a content sigh escaping him when Hank kissed his hair. “Welcome back, kid. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”

Connor only nodded, too busy sorting out all the conflicting emotions in him. He didn’t know how Kamski managed to get all of his data into this android, and the thought of occupying someone else’s shell was terrifying, but it had to work for now.

Maybe they would find another RK800, or be able to fix his own body, now that there was no risk of him shutting down.

Maybe they could fix it and everything would return to how it was.

He really didn’t want to learn how to use this model and all its strange functions. He was fine with being who he was. He didn’t need the upgrade, especially not like this.

But that was all he had at the moment.

And maybe that was okay for now.

As long as no one else had died for this, it maybe was okay.

And maybe Sumo wouldn’t mind the change too much either.

At least Hank didn’t seem to care. Which was a relief.

But Connor knew, this wouldn’t blow over just like that. Maybe the body was fine, but it had left his mind with scars. And he wasn’t sure if he was able to mend them by himself.

But right now, having Hank hug him like that, it seemed as if everything was okay and that all problems in the world had solved themselves.

He liked hugs, he decided.

Maybe even a little more than dogs.


End file.
